The Republican National Committee said Wednesday it was taking off the air an attack ad that critics said was a racial slur against Democratic Tennessee Senate candidate Harold Ford Jr. (who is African-American), one day after the party’s chairman said he saw nothing wrong with it.
The ad - in which a young, white actress talks about meeting Ford, a 36-year-old bachelor who is black, “at the Playboy party” and invites him to “call me” - was denounced as a race-baiting tactic by the Ford campaign, the NAACP and Republican former Sen. Bill Cohen.
Bob Corker, Ford’s Republican opponent for the seat being vacated by Senate Republican leader Bill Frist, also called it “tacky” and asked that it be pulled.
Danny Diaz, a spokesman for the RNC, insisted that the ad, which RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman defended Tuesday in an interview on MSNBC-TV, wasn’t being “pulled.” He said the decision had nothing to do with the controversy; instead, the ad had simply “run its course.”
Officially, the ad was commissioned and paid for by the RNC’s independent expenditure unit, which isn’t allowed to coordinate or communicate with the national party or its candidates. That became a point of contention as Republicans fought among themselves over who was responsible for the spot.
Even though it included a disclaimer that said “the Republican National Committee is responsible for the content of this advertising,” Mehlman maintained Tuesday that the RNC couldn’t do anything about it.
There has been quite a bit of controversy regarding Republican campaign ads in the Tennessee senate race. This particular ad was very glaring in that it portrayed Ford as a black playboy with naked white bimbo women lusting after him. Here is the ad via YouTube:
Of course Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman has defended this ad on MSNBC, saying:
Mehlman: I don’t have the authority to take it down or put it up. It’s what called an independent expenditure.
The way that process works under the campaign reform laws is I write a check to an independent individual. And that person’s responsible for spending money in certain states. Tennessee is one of them.
I’ll tell you this, though. After the comments by Mr. Corker and by former Senator Cohen, I looked at the ad. I don’t agree with that characterization of it. But it’s not an ad that I have authority over. I saw it for the first time the same time that they did.
[....]
Mehlman: I think that there is nothing more repugnant in our society than people who try to divide Americans along racial lines. And I would denounce any ad that I felt did.
I happen not to believe that ad does, but as I said before, I don’t have the legal authority to take the ad down. It’s an independent expenditure. I looked at it. I just disagree with what Mr. Shelton (director of the Washington Bureau of the NAACP) said about it.
The last thing Mehlman wants to do is pull this ad in the face of withering criticism against the Republican Party's showing of this ad in Tennessee. Mehlman knew that this ad was both racist and sexist. He knew that this ad would generate a huge amount of racial controversy. Mehlman knew that this ad was targeted towards lower educated, racist Republicans--even as he lied to Tim Russert on MSNBC. So the Republicans ran this ad over the past couple of days in Tennessee--just before the controversy started generating a nation-wide criticism against the Republicans. And now Ken Mehlman and the Republican Party is taking this ad off the air because the ad has "run its course."
But the Republican Party's race baiting still isn't finished in Tennessee. Now we have a new Republican Party radio ad attacking Harold Ford while African tom-tom drums play in the background. Here's the link to the radio ad via TPM.
What is even more amazing about this radio ad is that Republican Bob Corker doesn't feel it is racist, because he apparently approved the radio ad in the first place. But on CNN, Corker told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that he couldn't get the "bimbo" ad pulled off the air. He claimed the same line of defense that RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman claimed--these ads were from "independent expenditure groups." Guess what--we've got a circular argument where both Corker and Mehlman claim they can't do anything about these ads being shown in Tennessee. Corker also claimed the ad was "tacky," but never admitted that the ad was racist. You can view the exchange here on Crooks and Liars. In a sense, Corker is trying to claim that he is a victim of the National Republican Party interfering with his own election by showing this "tacky" ad, for which he has no control over, but will benefit him if enough Tennessee Republicans vote for Corker because of Harold Ford's race. RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman is also trying to make himself and the Republican Party out as the victim here, saying that the Republican Party couldn't control these independent expenditure groups, or the bimbo ad they aired in Tennessee. You just have to marvel at the blame game here--even as Corker continues to air his racist radio ad with the African jungle drums.
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