Open Letter To Robin Weirauch: Tell The DCCC To Pull Their Attack Ad

Dear Robin:
You have run a great campaign. You have spoken from your heart about the need for Ohio values in Washington, how somebody needs to speak out and stand against the mindset that puts the well-financed backers of lobbyists in tailored suits and alligator shoes over the homespun interests of hardworking people. Remember, you hope to represent a state where sweater vests never went out of style. You value honesty, respect for neighbors, church, the value of work. You have said repeatedly you won't be part of the Washington crowd.

[UPDATE 1 -- Jeff Coryell's Ohio Daily Blog has the district's demographics. It is rural, covers 16 counties and is filled with blue collar workers. The largest city has fewer than 30,000 resident.]

So prove it. Get rid of that attack ad. All it does is make you part and parcel with the crop of politicians from whom you've tried to set yourself apart. You were succeeding. You don't need to get down in the gutter. Your message was up. The ad is down. It has no class, and may actually undo all that you have accomplished this fall. Tell the DCCC to send you the video so you can bury it in a landfill.

If you take a stand on principle and ask the DCCC to pull the ad -- if you say thanks, but no thanks -- you will have proven that you really are a different kind of politician, someone who believes what she says, someone who stands behind what she says. You have pledged no dirt, no attacks, only the high road. Live up to that pledge. Speak up.

If you do, you will be seen as a square, and people will notice. The presses will stop, the radio talk shows will buzz, the blogs will light up. Why? Because somebody said: I have standards. When I say a clean campaign and no attacks, I mean exactly that. In fact, I mean everything I say. That I will fight for jobs and against unfair trade deals. That I will fight the corporate lobbyists. That I will fight for health care and the children's health insurance program. That I won't be a Bush-Cheney patsy. That I really mean it when I say that taxes on the middle class need to be lowered.

Robin, from one end of the U.S. to the other, people will notice if a candidate says enough is enough. Throwing mud is not your message; being dedicated and working hard is the message.

That DCCC attack ad doesn't help you. It only makes you look like just another pol who will say or do anything to get elected. Or let somebody say or do anything in your behalf. Sternly shake your finger at the DCCC and tell it to craft a better message, one that says a cop's wife from a small Ohio town called Napoleon can go to Washington and get things done. That somebody who started life working in a factory wants to make things better. That the days of the slicksters and sidesteppers and cheap shot artists are finished.

House Dems OH-05 Attack Ad: It Stinks And Ohio Deserves Better

BOWLING GREEN, Ohio -- This attack ad is now on YouTUBE, and it represents the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's foray into Ohio's 5th District to aid Robin Weirauch. She has been fresh, upbeat, pretty much tireless and perhaps on the road to an upset win against State Rep. Bob Latta. So what does she get from the House Dems in Washington? Warmed over material that rehashes everything you were bored to death hearing about Tom Noe, Bob Taft and Latta's troubles with the Ohio Elections Commission. Snore.

The ad is about as stimulating and watchable as a rerun of the Lawrence Welk Show on PBS. And equally as predictable. A-one, a-two, a-three. Maybe the House Dems' writers are on strike, too? At least Welk had a machine that blew soap bubbles at his audience while the band played on.

Weirauch is a candidate with a populist, positive message. She's talking about jobs moving offshore, about Ohio's factories being creamed by cheap labor in China, about people who can't afford health care, about being tuned into small towns and the area of the state where she grew up and wants to serve in the Capitol. She wants to cut taxes on the middle class. She's kept her pledge not to take potshots at her opponent. But she gets second-rate schlock from the DCCC, a script from 2006 about Noe and Taft.

The ad is called "Ohio Deserves Better." And it does.

Ohio Valley Politics has the ad, and also a link to the much more clever Ohio Democratic Party Web site launched today that actually makes some pretty good partisan points. Buckeye State Blog has the ad up, too, and proprietor Jerid Kurtz notes in a comment that it looks a lot like the stuff Latta tossed at State Sen. Steve Buehrer in the GOP primary during October and November. Jerid just adds to the sense this is tired material. It just may be that the homegrown Dems know more than the Washington Dems.

OH-05 Buehrer: Oops, Club For Growth Ad Used Project Vote Smart Data

BOWLING GREEN, Ohio (TDB) -- Oh-05 Republican Steve Buehrer says it was "despicable" and unethical for Bob Latta to use Project Vote Smart candidate survey data in an attack ad. Yet the Club for Growth -- which has given Buehrer about $260,000 for his House campaign against Latta -- did the same thing in another political contest. It used Project Vote Smart data as a political weapon.

Jeff Coryell at Ohio Daily Blog had this piece on Oct. 18 about Project Vote Smart's complaint that Latta had used its material in an attack ad. The PVS presser noted it happened very rarely.

Still, Red SeaLLC made an attack ad with PVS as a source for the Buehrer-backing Club for Growth to use in an Idaho House race. It seems that what is wrong in the Midwest is proper in the Far West. Or maybe the Club for Growth and Buehrer figured nobody would notice.

Buehrer and Latta are arguing over a 2002 survey about school prayer and the Ten Commandments. Latta did a mailer to GOP voters earlier this month noting that the Project Vote Smart survery showed Buehrer was opposed to religion in schools and public buildings. Buehrer, however, said he didn't answer a question and indeed supports school prayer and the Ten Commandments. Meanwhile, Project Vote Smart has complained Latta was not supposed to use the survey results in an attack ad, and Buehrer has been ballistic over the incident. He was quoted in the Toledo Blade:

"Project Vote Smart is categorically criticizing Mr. Latta for using something that is supposed to be a guide for voters as a political weapon. I think that is the most despicable sort of attack you can think of."

Apparently, the Club for Growth -- Buehrer's financial angel in the NW Ohio GOP primary contest -- had already delivered the "most despicable sort of attack you can think of." Doesn't seem like Latta is the only guy with muddy hand in the NW Ohio House contest.

The Blade story was by Joe Vardon and it captures nicely Buehrer's horror. Of course, it doesn't mention that Buehrer's backers had done the same thing in another state.

OH-05 GOP Buehrer v. Latta: Attack Ad Uses Phony Plain Dealer Front Page

BOWLING GREEN, Ohio -- The Club for Growth PAC has released a political attack ad in Ohio's 5th Congressional District that displays a faked front page of the state's largest newspaper, The Plain Dealer. The bogus Plain Dealer is visible at the beginning of the 30-second spot that criticizes State Rep. Bob Latta as a tax-and-spend Republican. The ad was created to generate support for State Sen. Steve Buehrer, and is running on cable and broadcast outlets in OH-05.

[UPDATE: 2:58 pm EDT -- There was a story in the newspaper under the headline "Taft OKs tax increase, largest budget in Ohio history," but it was not on the front page as the Club for Growth asserts in its attack ad. The story written by Julie Carr Smyth and Stephen Ohlemacher, who are now both with the Associated Press, then with the paper's bureau in Columbus. It ran on Jun 27, 2003 and was on page B-4, which means it was buried in the metro section and nowhere near the front page. It was 592 words long and mentioned that Taft used his line item veto several times on the bill.]

Ironically, the Club for Growth says the ad "sets the record straight" about Buehrer's conservative economic principles. But some might say it seems disreputable, underhanded or even dishonest to present a non-existent newspaper page as proof in an attack ad. The tactic smacks of a political dirty trick.

By the way, The Plain Dealer page that that appears in the ad has plenty of clues that give it away as a phony. It doesn't have a date. It has a generic picture of the Ohio Statehouse. It uses the wrong style headline typeface. And it does not have the correct column format. The clues might not be instant giveaways in Northwest Ohio -- where OH-O5 is located -- because The Plain Dealer does not circulate in that portion of Ohio and people are not familiar with how the newspaper really looks.

There are real versions of front pages from Cleveland at this Web portal. The Club for Growth issued a press release accompanying the attack ad that says Latta "wasted no time twisting the truth." Pat Toomey, the Club for Growth's president, went on to say:

"It is sad to see Bob Latta distort the facts in order to paint himself a 'rock solid conservative' when in fact he supported tax and spending increases. The Club for Growth PAC ad will inform voters of the truth about Bob Latta's record."

Apparently, it has done some distorting of its own by creating a phony newspaper page.

MoveOn Ad Rips Sen. McCain: Bush Is His Patsy

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- MoveOn.org is trying to raise money for an independent attack ad that pillories Republican Sen. John McCain as the architect behind White House plans to send more troops to Iraq. In a fundraising e-mail, MoveOn said it wants to get the ad broadcast in Iowa and New Hampshire, early key presidential states, and on national CNN. MoveOn calls McCain ''the darling of the media" and contends his maverick status gives cover to neo-cons intent on escalating the war.

"Our goal is to show that there will be a real political cost to John McCain and to anyone else who promotes such a reckless move," the e-letter from MoveOn's Tom Mattie says. ''Once the pundits see that John McCain is losing support, and that McCain doesn't need to be treated with kid gloves, other politicians will flee from this incredibly unpopular position."

A link to the ad on YouTube is HERE. MoveOn has a lot of information about its history and involvement in the progressive political movement HERE.

McCain -- a former prisoner of war in Vietnam -- has called for at least 30,000 more troops. He ran against Bush in the 2000 GOP presidential primaries, but was crushed by Karl Rove's tactics and a whisper campaign that portrayed him as mentally shaky and etc.