This time, the campaign ads have started before the candidates have even filed for office. The Democratic Party is going after GOP favorite daughter Elizabeth Dole, and the Republican Party is responding in kind.
Brace yourself. This high-stakes race could break all previous campaign records —for spending as well as smear tactics.
Don’t look for subtleties in these ads. First, the Democrats accused Dole’s campaign of lying because it held at least one private fund-raiser —with an Enron connection, no less —shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, during a period when Dole said her campaign was on hold.
The Republican Party responded instantly — and wisely —with a similar looking and sounding ad that accuses Democrats of launching a smear campaign. The ads have run virtually back-to-back in commercial breaks during local news programming.
The result with voters may be a wash, leaving their image of Dole none the worse. But a prolonged run of such advertising will deepen voters’ cynicism about politics.
It could succeed for the Democrats, if past campaigns are any indication. A Raleigh newspaper columnist has suggested that the Democrats are taking a page from retiring Sen. Jesse Helms’ old political playbook. When Helms faced the seemingly invincible Gov. Jim Hunt in the 1984 Senate race, the Helms campaign changed Hunt’s image in voters’ minds with 18 months of negative TV ads. The closing line on many of those messages — “Where do you stand, Jim?” — still rings in memory. Hunt lost to Helms.
The Democrats’ big closer in the anti-Dole commercial says, “Tell Elizabeth Dole we expect the truth.”The commercial quotes a Winston-Salem Journal article that says the Dole campaign lied about the fund-raiser.
The Dole campaign says all public campaign appearances were called off during the time in question. The Houston fund-raiser was a small, private luncheon — with Enron CEO Ken Lay as host — arranged while Dole was in town to address a Christian women’s group. Dole has returned the $5,000 that Lay’s family gave her. Her campaign staff says the remaining $15,000 raised at the event was from individuals with no connection to Enron.
Dole would look less like she’s splitting hairs if she returned all the proceeds from the Lay-sponsored event. Her reluctance to do so —considering how well she’s doing with fund-raising —is puzzling. Perhaps she’s afraid it looks like too much of an admission.
At any rate, Dole now is enjoying being on the George Bush steamroller instead of under it, as she was in her 1999 presidential bid. This time she’s the one soaking up campaign contributions and enjoying front-runner status. The downside is that she becomes everyone else’s target — a small price to pay.
Other Republicans who want to challenge Dole for the GOP nomination are frustrated that she gets all the media attention and Bush’s blessing, too. But they haven’t complained so far about the Democrats taking aim at her with the attack ad. For once, they’re glad for the spotlight to rest on Dole. It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last.
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