Elizabeth Dole Ties Opponent to Godless Americans PAC

Senator Elizabeth Dole is in a tough race for reelection. So Elizabeth Dole has started to air a thirty second ad linking her opponent, Kay Hagan, with an organization called Godless Americans Pac. Naturally the Hagen Campaign is crying foul.

According to the Wall Street Journal, The 30-second spot, which is airing statewide, opens with the line: "A leader of the Godless Americans PAC recently held a secret fund-raiser in Kay Hagan's honor." It concludes: "She hid from cameras, took godless money. What did Hagan promise in return?"

Reports the Journal: "It refers to an ActBlue fund-raiser in Boston last month at the home of writer Wendy Kaminer and her husband, Woody Kaplan, a member of Godless Americans PAC's advisory board."

Kay Hagan, who is an elder in the Presbyterian Church, has demanded that the Dole Campaign take the ad down, even threatening legal action if it does not. The Dole Campaign so far is not disposed to do so, arguing that the charges made in the ad are true, which they are-technically. But the ad does raise certain implications that are pretty wide of the truth. It is doubtful that Kay Hagen is secretly preparing to advance some kind of atheist agenda in return for campaign money.

Of course, one is tempted to suggest that if George W. Bush can be excoriated for speaking at Bob Jones University and Ronald Reagan can be attacked for visiting a German cemetery with dead Waffen SS in it, then Kay Hagan is fair game for consorting with known atheists. One suspects, though, that the news media will side with Hagen in this case, just as they sided against Bush and Reagan.

Mind, Elizabeth Dole may whip up some support among evangelicals by accusing her opponent of consorting with Godless Americans. But she also might turn off more secular voters who work in high tech industries around Raleigh and are not traditional southern voters.

The technique that Elizabeth Dole is using in regards to her opponent and Godless Americans, accusation by implication, is as old as American politics. It reminds one of the story of the politician-it may have been Lyndon Johnson-who once accused his opponent of "matriculating with thespians." The accusation was true, but somewhat less disreputable as voters in rural Texas in the 1940s might have thought, since it means going to acting school.

Will the ad work? Kay Hagan may be making a mistake by publicly making a big deal about it, which keeps the story alive and illustrates another LBJ maxim of making an outrageous accusation just so the opponent will have to deny it. The will all depend on how many people are impressed by the ad vrs how many people are annoyed.

Source: OMG! Senate Fight Heats Up in North Carolina, Mary Lou Carnevale, The Wall Street Journal, October 29th, 2008