Carrie addresses Virginia Democrat Jennifer Wexton's disgusting campaign ad in a post earlier this morning.
Maybe I should leave it at that, but I am so disgusted by the ad that I have to put in my two cents worth.
It takes a lot to sink to a new low in today’s political climate.
Wexton, who is running for a seat in the Virginia Senate in a special election that will determine which party is in control of the state’s legislature, has managed.
In the ad in question, Ms. Wexton compares tea party members to rapists.
The slimy ad begins with ominous music and a voice over:
A woman assaulted at night by the reservoir, another by an intruder who forces her way in through the bedroom window, and for so many traumatized again by facing the criminal in court…
Wexton, a prosecutor, then appears standing by an empty witness chair, and promises that, if elected, she will “fight just as hard against tea party Republicans who would take away a woman’s healthcare and right to chose even in cases of rape and incest” as she did to put rapists in prison.
“On election day help me stand up for her,” Wexton says. Because, you know, the tea party, a group mostly concerned with fiscal matters and not social issues, wants to rape her.
I guess Wexton would argue that she doesn’t actually come right out and say tea party people are rapists. She’s just going to fight against them like she fights against rapists (only without the Miranda Rights and all). Playing innocent on the score of calling tea partiers rapists, however, is comparable to somebody who tosses a lighed match on a haystack and walks innocently away.
Ms. Wexton, by the way, might do well to find out who is actually taking away women’s health care (hint: it’s already snatched health insurance from five million Americans, male and female).
Apparently unable to advance a real argument as to why she should be elected to serve the 33rd district, she just decries the tea party as rapists. Nice.
The Washington Post, not surprisingly, has enthusiastically endorsed Ms. Wexton. The Post's editorial board sees in Ms. Wexton a candidate who “would bring to the job a refreshing dose of energy and passion, as well as valuable experience on mental health issues.”
There’s a word for what Wexton is doing here: demagoguery. Demagoguery is the sort of thing high-minded, elite newspaper editorialists in the past were able to recognize. But that was then and this is now. Now is when the Washington Post runs this headline: “GOP Takes Offense at Wexton’s Campaign Ad.”
Lordy, those GOP folks are sensitive:
A campaign ad released this week by Democratic Virginia state Senate candidate Jennifer Wexton has sparked sharp criticism among Republican officials, who claim Wexton’s message in the video compares her political opponents to rapists.
You’ve got to love “sparked sharp criticism among Republicans!”
"Claim Wexton's message in the video comparies her political opponents to rapists" is another nice touch.
This ad is about as refreshing as the Obama campaign ad accusing Mitt Romney of murdering a woman who died of cancer.
Ms. Wexton is one of three in a race to fill the seat that opened up when Democrat Mark Herring became attorney general. Republican John Whitbeck and Joe T. May, former Republican legislator who has cut ties with his party, are her challengers.