For a man who has fully embraced President Trump’s “America First” slogan, Rep. Kevin Cramer’s (R-ND) Senate campaign is using a surprising array of international images to sell his campaign.
The top Senate candidate’s website is replete with Getty stock images from around the globe, from Serbia to Indonesia, Hungary to the United Kingdom, to illustrate his made-in-America political views.
One notable shot: Cramer, a staunch ally of Trump who has campaigned heavily on a border-security crackdown, uses a stock image to illustrate the “Illegal immigration and sanctuary cities” section of his website.
The problem? It was taken by Hungarian photographer David Balogh, who has extensively photographed the Hungary-Serbia border crisis, where Hungary’s hard-right anti-immigrant government has erected a fence in response to the ongoing Syrian refugee crisis.
That’s far from the only odd image choice.
The photo illustrating Cramer’s opposition to the “Waters of the U.S. rule” (shown below) is actually waters of Indonesia. That Getty Stock image is of Lake Sentani, near Jayapura City, Indonesia — and far from Fargo.
His campaign’s latest press release on Medicare and Social Security featured an image of old man with a boy in a field. That happens to be a Getty Images photo taken in Serbia and titled “Cute grandfather and grandson going for a walk.”
And Cramer’s “Farm Bill” photo (below) is on Getty as “Man Driving a Tractor.” It appears this shot is from a British photographer.
This isn’t the first time Cramer’s drawn some notice for his use of stock images — one local veteran was unhappy enough about his use of an “Authentic Vietnam Veteran” stock image in a campaign web ad to write a letter to the Bismarck Tribune last month, and Cramer’s campaign was forced to apologize earlier this year for using a photo of him with two local Democrats without seeking their permission to be used in campaign information.
Cramer is running against Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) in a race strategists in both parties say is the GOP’s best chance at a Senate pickup this fall.
His campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Betcha some poor staffer gets blamed for this.
The usual Republican dishonesty…
If you gathered all of the Cramer supporters who are bothered by this, and assembled them in one location, I doubt there would be enough people to fill an Intex 18’ x 48" Easy Set Above Ground Pool from Walmart.
Statement from Kramer campaign: “This is clearly Getty Images’ fault for using anything but real American images taken by real American photographers of real Americans in real America settings. This happens because of the world’s worst photography laws that are terrible for America. Heidi Heitkamp - soft on photography. Something will be done if you elect Kevin Kramer for Senate. Kevin Kramer - strong on picture borders.”
I believe that’s what you have scapeterns for.