Top 5 Senate Attack Ads (Historical)

McBane here. Ready for a negative carpet-bombing attack by the RNC and other groups against Senator Obama? You should be. Why? Because he’s winning. And they work.

The senate is probably the closest thing to a presidential race that you can find in scope and substance, and I enjoy the senate races and like to draw attention to them. But it still gets goofy in there. Let’s take a look at the five most ridiculous, historically, to let us know what kind of thing we might run into in the next three weeks.

5) Schaffer-Udall (2008)

The lesson - peace is stupid and possibly evil. (Thank goodness we don’t know anything about peacekeeping in Iraq; how else would we spend our money?) The other lesson - never vote for a different version of a bill if there is any military funding in the original bill. Basically just vote for every bill and you’ll be safe.

In any event, Republican Bob Schaffer and Democrat Mark Udall are running for an open seat in Colorado. Should be interesting.

4) Chambliss-Cleland (2002)

Chickenhawk Republican Saxby Chambliss used one vote that Democrat Max Cleland, Vietnam vet (and triple amputee) made against a version of a Homeland Security proposal and turned it into a big scare-the-shit-out-of-you ad with bin Laden and assaults on Cleland’s patriotism. This plays well in the South, and Chambliss won.

3) Gantt-Helms (1990)

CNN analyst and attack ad ace Alex Castellanos, master of the subliminal (if not the sublime) image, preyed on affirmative action fears to give the notorious old racist Republican Jesse Helms the edge in a re-election campaign against Democrat Harvey Gantt.

Quotas, obviously, are illegal. Say what you want about affirmative action, but I think in practice, it’s little more than lip service. But again, running against race in the south wins. What can you say?

2) Coleman-Franken (2008)

I have a strong personal preference in this one; I was big on the late Democrat Paul Wellstone, and I thought the manner in which Republicans tried to spin his memorial service into an inappropriate political rally was about as low as you can go. I also think current Republican senator Norm Coleman is an opportunist and has nothing but his self-interest in mind. I do think the Democratic nominee Al Franken is funny, but I also think as a former satirist and lefty radio host he might be a polarizing figure for the party. (Satire is ripe ground for attacks, since many people “don’t get it.“ Plus, whenever I see a polarizing political figure, I remember a conservative acquaintance of mine informing me after 2004 that the Democratic party was dead for ever. The implied lesson I‘ve learned, of course, is obvious: there will also be elections after 2008. Dems need to watch out.)

Minnesota. What can you say? Even their third-party candidates are ridiculous. (I especially loved how when Jesse Ventura ran for governor, he wanted to cut all financial aid for colleges, despite having a huge groundswell of support from college students. I guess he inadvertently proved his own point that college is a waste of government money.)

In any event this ad is obviously mean and for simpletons. But I guess that’s the Coleman way.

1) Corker-Ford (2006)

In a surprisingly closely contested election in Tennessee to fill Bill Frist’s empty seat, Democrat Harold Ford Jr., a young black bachelor (since married), had drawn even with Republican Bob Corker in the polls before the RNC started going negative. This ad caused quite a stir not just in Tennessee, but nationally.

Addressing some of the charges: Ford attended a Super Bowl party (along with 3,000 other people), which was the referred-to party hosted by Playboy. (Referred to by the squeaky-voiced white sex kitten/woman with bared shoulders.) By the way, I’ve never been able to find a copy of the article posted in the commercial; if you do, please let me know, I‘d love to read it. (Also, I’m assuming some dude who held a stake in some porn company probably donated something to his campaign, as far as that charge goes.)

In any event, I don’t know what this ad could possibly be suggesting, except that Ford was a young sex-crazed black dude with a taste for white women. A tough message to battle for Ford, who was looking to be the first black senator from the south since Reconstruction. Corker saw his poll numbers shoot up and he won the senate seat in an otherwise down year for Republicans.

The lesson, apparently: go mean or go home.