Crooks & Liars has up the video of Ken Mehlman on the Harold Ford ‘bimbo’ ad. Take a look.
Let’s discuss a bit more about the RNC bimbo ad Ken Mehlman is running down in Tennessee.
If you watch the ad closely it is clear that the racist appeal — about Harold Ford having sex with white women — is the centerpiece, the entire point of the ad.
Here’s how you know.
The ad has a number of faux man on the street interviews. Each is a spoof based on GOP policy talking points. So for instance, a hunter is interviewed and he says “Ford’s right. I do have too many guns.” An older guy says “When I die, Harold Ford will let me pay taxes again.”
Not my cup of tea as far as humor goes. And I’d be surprised if Harold Ford is a big gun control man. But pretty standard fair for ‘funny’ political ads. And each addressed to a question of public policy.
But then you see that one ‘man on the street interview’ isn’t quite like the rest. It’s almost like those old Sesame Street segments, one of these things is not like the other.
It’s the one spot with the platimum blonde with no visible clothes on, vamping “I met Harold at the Playboy Party.”
What policy issue is she talking about? It’s not connected to anything. It’s just, ‘I’m a loose white woman. I hooked up with Harold at the Playboy mansion. And I can’t wait for him to do me again.’
Once you watch the ad again after realizing that, it sticks out like a sore thumb. What becomes clear is that the funny man on the street interview clips are padding, filler meant to make the ‘Harold does white chicks’ blurb appear to fit into a larger whole, just one of a number of ‘man on the street’ clips.
Mehlman says he doesn’t think race is an issue in the ad. But face it, the entire ad was built around this one hot button racist appeal. It’s not even close.
Late Update: And one other point, after watching the entire Russert-Mehlman segment now posted at Crooks & Liars, I think Russert handled Mehlman’s bamboozlement better than I originally thought. Mehlman’s argument is really weak. But it seems possible he was hanging his argument on a technical truth — about which we’ll say more later. And Russert came back at him several times on the issue of the ad’s transparently racist content. We’re still trying to get to the bottom of the regs. So we’ll update as we go.
Some TPM Readers give their verdict on Ken Mehlman’s novel campaign finance law interpretation …
Anonymous TPM Reader A …
Iâm somewhat of an election law expert, although I have not worked specifically on the regs dealing with independent expenditures. But it seems to me that Mehlmanâs claim he cannot control the IEs of the RNC is just false. First, remember that the âindependentâ in IEs is independent *of the candidate*. That is what the FECâs firewall guidance is supposed to protect. Now Mehlman may be somehow involved in coordinated expenditures with candidates, and he is almost certainly in communication with candidates and their campaigns on a regular basis. So he may be steering clear of discussing information that comes from candidates (âplans, projects, activities or needsâ) with the IE operation of the RNC. But itâs a huge leap from that to say that he as the head of the party running the ads canât instruct the IE operation to take an ad down. If he does that, heâs acting on behalf of the RNC, and he is not communicating material information from the candidate to the IE operation.
Itâs one thing for a candidate to claim he has no control over a partyâs ads. Itâs quite another for the head of the party to make that claim. Please.
Anonymous TPM Reader B …
I’m no lawyer, but reading through the page you linked to, it strikes me that firewalls are supposed to prevent coordinated expenditures. No one is asking Mehlman to spend money on behalf of Corker, or to dictate how that funds are spent – we’re asking him to dictate how it is *not* to be spent. That sounds semantic, but I think it cuts to the heart of the matter. The law is designed to prevent the RNC from coordinating with candidates on how money gets spent, but I can’t imagine that it was intended to strip
organizations of the ability to set and enforce reasonable guidelines as to how their fund are not to be spent. (A thought experiment: A rogue operative puts up an RNC-funded ad that actually supports the Democratic candidate. Are we to believe the RNC couldn’t cancel it?)But perhaps the real problem is that Mehlman is trying to have it both ways. He should pull the ad. But if the law really prevents him from stopping the ad, then he ought to be free to publicly condemn it, because his remarks carry no effective weight. It’s a simple choice, but Mehlman’s trying to weasel out of making it.
And finally TPM Reader MS …
The firewall excuse is a legal red herring. It makes no sense for a law to prohibit the chairperson of a party to not do something. Our entire system of law is built around someone having a duty, breaching that duty, and in the process harming an innocent party. If this were a civil case and the Democrats were suing for damages because of the ad, Mehlman seems to suggest that his defense would be that he had a duty to not collaborate, because breach of that duty would harm an innocent party, in this case, the opposing Democratic candidate. But how exactly is the Democratic candidate harmed by not running the ad? He isn’t. If Mehlman steps in and bars the ad from airing, he is, in a way, helping the opposition. And I guarantee that the firewall law wasn’t designed to stop the RNC from helping the DNC. Mehlman can probably hide behind this law long enough to get past Nov. 7, but he’s on shaky legal territory in a more theoretical sense.
Finally, at TPM Election Central, Greg Sargent interviewed Public Campaign’s David Donnelly for his view of Mehlman’s excuse.
Your faith in goverment restored!
Turns out the House Intel Committee’s scanner was only down for two months, not five.
Worrisome, ominous. From the Great Falls Tribune …
A field director for Jon Tester’s U.S. Senate campaign in Butte and Anaconda has been reported missing after failing to meet with volunteers on Saturday in Butte.
Robert Hollister Reneau, 26, was last seen in Anaconda Saturday afternoon by volunteers he was supervising. The group decided to meet for dinner in Butte, but Reneau didn’t show up.
Ahhh, CNN. Frontpage Headline: ” One of FBI’s ‘Most Wanted Terrorists’ confirmed dead.”
And then “An al Qaeda operative wanted in connection with the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings was killed in April in Pakistan, American officials have confirmed.”
Hmmm. Guy involved in the embassy bombings killed in April. And it’s October. Okay.
Hmmm. What happened here?
We’ve been getting emails this afternoon about a piece in the Post by Daniela Deane about the Michael J. Fox/Rush Limbaugh imbroglio. I didn’t get a chance to read it. But readers have said they thought it took Limbaugh’s claim (that Fox was somehow faking or exaggerating his symptoms in his TV spot) too much at face value.
As of 8:30 PM the link is still on the front page with the byline Daniela Deane and Bill Brubaker. But when you click through the link it’s to an article on the same topic by David Montgomery. And the tone seems really different than that described of the Deane article.
Anybody know what’s up with that? Could be nothing more than slotting out one article for an updated one. But I’m curious. Anyone know anything?
Late Update: Here’s what TPM Reader TT says …
One thing on that Michael J. Fox article. In the earlier Daniela Deane article, they said they tried to contact spokespeople for Fox but hadn’t been able to yet. It sounds like they finally did, and also heard from a source who’d seen him on Boston Legal (that wasn’t in the original article either).
The basic structure of the two articles is the same.
Even Later Update: My friend Jon Cohn seemed to manage a bit better than the Post.
Really, Really Late Update: Here’s what appears to be the text of the original Post story. If this is a faithful copy, you can see why the editors sent it down the memory hole. What were they thinking?
Okay, looks like the AP was the first to get confirmation on federal investigation into shady land deals by Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ). TPMmuckraker and seveal other news organizations have been in the hunt on this one since late last week. We’re going to follow up shortly with more information to add to the story.
So many GOP congressmen under federal investigation.
So little time.
Renzi’s lawyer told the AP Renzi wasn’t aware of any federal investigation. With what we’ve heard I find that very difficult to believe. Heck, we’ve been putting in calls to his office about the investigation since Friday. Heck, if he’d have called us back we could have filled him in on the whole thing.
More details into the land dealings of Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ), which are now the subject of a federal probe.
It seems that when Arizona land companies looking to arrange land swaps with the federal government went to Renzi for help, he kept hitting them up to include in their deals an unrelated parcel owned by one of his key financial backers and business associates.