Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., the former presidential candidate who was one of the first Republican women to serve as a cabinet secretary — she was Reagan’s transportation secretary and Bush I’s labor secretary — has tossed her long and distinguished record of public service onto history’s ash heap by releasing what is, hands-down, the sleaziest ad of the 2008 campaign season against her opponent, state Sen. Kay Hagan:
“A leader of the Godless Americans PAC recently held a secret fundraiser in Kay Hagan’s honor,” the ad begins, showing some ominously blurred footage, ostensibly of the event in question. The ad then quotes the group’s Ellen Johnson making atheist claims on two cable news shows. Summing up, the spot asks: “Godless Americans and Kay Hagan. She hid from cameras, took Godless money. What did Hagan promise in return?
And then an unidentified woman shouts, “There is no God!”
Ironically, Dole occupies the Senate seat once held by Jesse Helms, a pioneering purveyor of slimy advertising, and it’s that last line that gives Dole her permanent place in the campaign Hall of Shame beside him. Not only is the voice not identified, the video is edited so that casual viewers will assume it’s Hagan who is shouting.
It is not. Hagan is a Sunday School teacher and a Presbyterian Church elder.
Dole is desperate because she has fallen behind in the polls — in large measure because she only spent 33 days in North Carolina during the two years before the campaign began.
A native of Salisbury and Duke graduate who has not maintained a residence in North Carolina since she moved away 40 years ago, Elizabeth Dole lives at the Watergate Apartments in Washington with her husband Bob Dole, the 1996 GOP presidential nominee, former Senate majority leader and Viagra spokesman. The Doles’ permanent residence is in Kansas, his home state. She is a property owner in North Carolina, however. In 2004, she inherited her childhood home in Salisbury when her mother died at age 102.
Hagan, a native of Shelby, is an attorney and a former banker, who has served in the state senate for 10 years. She is the niece of former Florida governor and senator, Lawton Chiles, and her father was once served as mayor of Lakeland, Fla.
Slimy? Hardly. Hagan can’t deny that her last name rhymes perfectly with “pagan”. Any dimbulb can connect those dots. I did! I live in Ohio and Hagan will never get my vote.
Dear JohnDWoodsSr,
I think you are the dimbulb. -What has belief in God have to being an effective elected official in a country and state that are founded on the principle of a divided church and state. I don’t care if Hagan is an idolator as long as she or anyone else elected to office can do the job. Keep religion out of this stuff. You fundamentalist Christian types are the reason George Bush got 4 more years to keep screwing up this country, anyway.
I think JohnDWoodsSr is kidding. Also, I’m not sure this is the slimiest ad on TV. It might be stupidest but for slime, you can’t beat McCain’s “Disrespectful” ad about Obama.
Trish, if you put it that way, then I am the dimbulb. As the church lady says, “Never mind”.
I think we all agree, society’s queen, Elizabeth Dole has shown her true side to prove that she can lie with the greatest political liars in history. Who put the video together for Dole? Someone from the old Helms campaign. Surely, NC is smarter that this.
I live here. Every six years for the last 36, I’ve said, “Surely NC is smarter than this.” I’ve been disappointed since 1972.
I grew up there but moved when I was 29, and felt the same way most of the time. The beginning of the end was when Helms beat Galifinakis in 1972.
Still, Carter won the state in 1976, and I thought Jim Hunt and Terry Sanford were pretty good. Really liked Harvey Gantt, when he was mayor of Charlotte.
Liddy has always been more respected outside the state than at home, mostly because she didn’t have a power base or even close ties there. She left in the Sixties, and her political base was in D.C.
She was always struck me as a “type” I grew up around: they have money but they’re careful not to be extravagant, poised and prim and absolutely no fun, with extra helpings of holier-than-thou. Something about her always left me cold.
I think this ad has her evil husband Bob’s grimy mitts all over it — but it doesn’t matter who dreamed it up. She approved it, and I hope she goes down.
Y’all are being way too nice. All of the ReThuglican Faux Christian ads and rhetoric are sickening beyond belief to me.
I will be so glad when they are shoved out of positions of power.
They are grown up according to age, but have not developed beyond 6th grade delinquent mentality. If they ever had one, they’ve lost their collective soul.