There's still about a month until Election Day, but it's already safe to declare 2010 the year of the Muslim-baiting campaign ad.
Yes, there was the occasional flare-up in 2008, typically targeting Barack Obama. But since then, the associate-your-opponent-with-Muslims tactic has metastasized.
How did it happen? This is the first election cycle under a president whom many falsely believe to be Muslim. And lurking resentments and suspicions were stirred up even more by the "ground zero mosque" hysteria that began in May and raged all summer long. The topic became impossible to resist for conservative campaign strategists.
Here's a rundown of the five most notable such ads of the year -- so far:
This September spot from North Carolina GOP congressional hopeful Renee Ellmers gained instant notoriety for its casual conflation of "the Muslims," "the terrorists" and the organizers of Park51, the planned Islamic community center near ground zero. Ohio Republican state treasurer candidate Josh Mandel this month released an ad ostensibly targeting the ethical record of his opponent, a black Democrat named Kevin Boyce. But the spot gratuitously refers to a lobbyist linked to Boyce by his full name, "Mohammed Noure Alo," even though the lobbyist goes by "Noure Alo." And the ad also falsely suggests that Boyce, who is Christian, attends a mosque. "Kill the Ground Zero Mosque," a spot released over the summer by the National Republican Trust PAC, features pictures of mosques and Muslim militants alongside lurid imagery from Sept. 11, including a person falling from the World Trade Center. It also refers to "the audacity of jihad," another clear reference to Obama (who is pictured in the ad), and conflates the organizers of Park51 with the 9/11 terrorists. The ad was turned down by two networks in New York, and may in fact have been deliberately designed to be rejected and gin up publicity. It worked; the spot now has about 400,000 views on YouTube. The shadowy American Future Fund released this ad back in August attacking Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, for his "support" of Park51. In fact, Braley's position was merely that it was a local zoning issue for Manhattan, not for a congressman from eastern Iowa. The gist of the ad is that the "ground zero mosque" is the latest front in the centuries-long battle between Muslims and the West.
Dan Fanelli, a former Navy pilot who lost in the GOP primary to take on Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., put out a stunning trio of pro-racial-profiling ads featuring a Middle Eastern-looking man playing a "terrorist." In one scene, the actor is literally wearing a towel on his head and has a faux-bomb strapped to his body.
Authorities have charged four Staten Island teenagers with assault and aggravated harassment -- and are classifying both as hate crimes -- for allegedly terrorizing a Muslim classmate while he was in the eighth grade last year.
Kristian, a Muslim student who is now 16 years old and has been identified only by his first name, was the focus of a profile in the Staten Island Advance on Sunday. He told the paper the bullying started last year and at first he was called gay. Then his tormentors' focus shifted to the fact that he is Muslim (though his family is not particularly observant). The paper reports:
One day, Kristian recalled, he took a seat in the cafeteria to have lunch. A student snuck up behind him, grabbed his hair and yanked his head back, while a second one spat in his face.
"They called me a Muslim terrorist," Kristian said. "That I came to this country to blow down houses and buildings because I have long hair."
...
They began assaulting him in the hallways between classes, tripping him and then kicking and punching him -- in his knees, his groin and his back -- while he was on the floor, he said.
The news of the hate crimes charges against the teenagers comes not long after Staten Island experienced its own version of the "ground zero mosque" fight.
The outcry started over the summer following the decision by a local Catholic parish to sell a piece of property to the Muslim American Society, which planned to use it for a mosque. Pamela Geller, the anti-Islam activist who helped spark the Park51 controversy in Manhattan, got involved (see, for example, her post "Selling Out Staten Island to Stealth Jihadists"). "Mosques breed terrorism, I’m sorry," said one local dissenter in June. Ultimately, the opponents of the project won: The Catholic Church backed out of the $750,000 deal to sell the property in July.
This is also not the first time minors on Staten Island have physically assaulted a Muslim on the basis of ethnicity. On the night of Barack Obama's election in 2008, four white teenagers beat Ali Kamara, a 17-year-old black Muslim, with a baseball bat, allegedly because of his resemblance to the newly elected president.
It looks like someone down in North Carolina is finally attacking Republican House candidate and ex-Marine Ilario Pantano over an episode in Iraq in which he killed two unarmed prisoners.
In a report being circulated by the Pantano campaign, a state GOP official alleges that voters in the 7th Congressional District have been getting a push poll in which they are told about the murder charges brought against Pantano in 2005 -- which were ultimately dropped.
As we've detailed, Pantano in 2004 shot two unarmed Iraqi prisoners up to 60 times and then placed a sign bearing a Marine slogan next to their bodies. After a hearing on murder charges, military officials agreed with Pantano's version of events, in which the two men made a hostile move toward him.
The term "push poll" is often misused, but what is being reported in North Carolina actually hews to the industry definition -- negative campaigning disguised as a genuine poll:
They then ask who the voter will be supporting in the upcoming election between McIntyre and Pantano. If the voter indicates they are supporting Pantano – the call then turns. With the sound of a boiler room operation in the background as described by the angry voters receiving the calls, the voter is then asked politely if they were more likely to vote for Pantano if they knew that he had been accused of murder ... They also ask if they were more likely to vote for Pantano if they knew he once worked for Goldman Sachs (he was a trader there years ago and was not in management).
The tele-marketer then switches to questions about McIntyre. Naturally, the questions are flattering toward the Congressman. They ask if the voter would be more likely to vote for McIntyre if they knew he saved Social Security for seniors, for example.
The GOP is blaming the campaign of Rep. Mike McIntyre, D-N.C., for the calls, but there is no evidence for that. The state Democratic Party or some outside group could just as easily be responsible. (The McIntyre camp has not responded to a call.)
McIntyre has been careful not to attack Pantano on the Iraq killings issue, at least in any way that can be linked to his campaign.
In a Facebook message, Pantano told his supporters: "McIntyre has started running a very nasty, very negative push poll. ... We are beginning to see how the big boys spend their money on job security. Everyone spread the word to our army to always remain patient and respect."
Less than a month before the midterms, the White House is now focusing its political messaging on how Republicans are funding their campaign efforts, with President Obama himself calling out Karl Rove and the Chamber of Commerce in speeches last week and using a rally on Sunday to warn that "special interests" backing the GOP pose "a threat to democracy."
There are two ways to look at this strategy. From the "How things should be" perspective, it's pretty much a winner. Obama's specific claim that the Chamber of Commerce is using foreign money might be going too far; while the Chamber does take in money from foreign sources, it insists that it doesn't actually use any of that money for campaign activities -- a claim that may well be valid. But the broader argument that major business and industry groups are helping to fuel the GOP's election push (and that they're able to do so quietly, thanks to a recent Supreme Court ruling) has the ring of truth. And his statement that Rove is helping to raise money for and advise a group that can raise big money from these sources is plainly accurate -- just as Rove's denials are plainly slippery and insincere.
But from the "How things actually are" perspective, all of this will get Obama and the Democrats absolutely nowhere. If anything, pointing out of the shady ways that the opposition raises money is the tactic of last resort for candidates in doomed elections. Even when arguments are spot-on, they are too complicated and too abstract to win over voters, who mostly believe that selling out to special interests for campaign cash is a habit of both parties.
Obama's attacks on the GOP's fund-raising immediately calls to mind the dying days of Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign. The GOP nominee hadn't led Bill Clinton in a single poll since emerging from the Republican primaries, but he smelled opportunity in mid-October when reports broke about the possible campaign finance violations by John Huang, a DNC fundraiser and former official with an Indonesian conglomerate who had raised money for the party at a Buddhist temple in Los Angeles. Dole desperately tried to gin up outrage over the possibility that money from foreign nationals and foreign companies might have found its way into the Clinton reelection effort.
"They've got their own laundromat, pumping out money," Dole said of the Democrats. "Now they are out raising money at Buddhist temples where they take a vow of poverty."
But there was no outrage, and Dole was lucky to garner 159 electoral votes on Election Day -- the worst showing for a Republican since Barry Goldwater.
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