Back in 2008, then-state Senator Kay Hagan was leading incumbent Republican US Senator Elizabeth Dole in the final weeks of a long campaign. In an attempt to shift the momentum, Dole’s campaign ran an ad that implied Hagan was an atheist funded by a group called the Godless Americans PAC. It backfired tremendously.
The ad reeked of desperation. Republican consultant Alex Castellanos remarked, “When you’re making ads that say, ‘There is no God,’ it usually means your campaign doesn’t have a prayer.” It heralded the end of Dole’s campaign.
This week, Michael Whatley’s campaign released a similarly desperate ad. This one is more vile than the Dole ad because it exploits a tragic death and has almost no truth in it. Whatley blames Roy Cooper for Iryna Zarutska’s death in the Charlotte light rail murder. The claim is absurd and has no basis in fact. Cooper wasn’t even in office when the killing took place.
It’s another act of desperation by another sinking campaign. It gives credence to the polls that show Cooper at or above 50 percent and Whatley stuck below 45. His only chance is to bring Cooper’s numbers down, and nothing he’s tried has worked.
The timing is telling, too. Whatley’s campaign knows he can’t wait much longer. That he’s launched such an ad in August shows the race is slipping away from him. If the numbers get too solid, he won’t be able to catch up in the final stretch. He’s trying frantically to make it close now. He’s flailing.
Whatley may temporarily close the gap, but it probably won’t last. The initial shock might evoke an emotional response, but voters will see through it with more rational reflection. That’s why ads like these usually run at the end of the campaign: the election is over before voters can come to their senses.
Whatley’s ad says a lot about him and the modern GOP. That he allowed his campaign to run such an ad lets us know that Whatley has no boundaries. He’ll say anything. He’s bought into the post-truth world. The ad is the logical conclusion of the “alternative facts” that Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway once defended. Facts no longer matter because everything is just words.
Exploiting the murder of Iryna Zarutska is despicable. Showing her death in the video is exploitative and disrespectful. Whatley should be ashamed, but after a decade of Donald Trump, shame is not an emotion shared by Republicans.
This is what Republicans do: the politics of fear
Disgusting. But sadly, not surprising.