Insults, charges fly in legislative races
LAS VEGAS -- To hear it from the political ad-makers and party officials, Kentucky voters have a clear choice in the state's US Senate race: a mentally-impaired and out-of-touch sitting senator, or a "limp-wristed" and "dumb" challenger who can't be called a real man.
South Dakotans, meanwhile, can choose between a "dishonest" former US representative who works for a lobbying firm that pushes "high drug prices and foreign beef," or a Kennedy-loving, too-liberal senator who lives off his rich lobbyist wife's income.
In Louisiana, Democrats are peddling what they themselves call "rumors" about Republican Senate candidate David Vitter. In Oklahoma, the GOP's Senate candidate, Tom Coburn, publicly referred to lawmakers in the state capital with a mild, but unprintable, expletive.
In Colorado, US Representative Marilyn Musgrave, a Republican, is depicted by an actress in a TV ad stealing a gold watch from a corpse at a funeral; another ad, funded by Colorado Families First, shows a woman meant to be Musgrave picking the pocket of a US soldier as he fends off enemy fire.
If it seems as though congressional campaigns are especially nasty this year, that's because they are. With fierce battles raging both in individual races and for the overall control of Congress, the rhetoric this year has grown highly charged and unusually personal.
"It's out of control," said Trip Baird, director of Senate relations at the Heritage Foundation, describing tactics by both parties. "It's like the fog of war. Let's just shoot everyone, and when the smoke clears, who cares? The deed is done."
"It's particularly bad this year," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. "So much is at stake, and they don't think at this point they're going to get a backlash by people. They think they will motivate people."
The battle for House seats is limited to about two dozen competitive races, and absent a huge upset, the GOP is expected to retain control of the chamber, currently made up of 227 Republicans, 205 Democrats and one Independent (two seats are vacant). Redistricting has further entrenched the incumbents, making it hard for challengers in either party to change the balance of power in the House.
Both sides have a few vulnerable incumbents, and there are contested open seats in closely-divided districts. Republicans bolstered their position by redistricting in Texas, where five Lone Star Democratic incumbents are fighting to keep their jobs. Particularly in these close races, ads and campaign rhetoric are running negative.
In Arizona, a Democratic ad taunts GOP Representative Rick Renzi for living in Virginia, and being "surrounded by special interests." A mailer in Texas -- sent in both English and Spanish -- accuses Democratic Representative Martin Frost of associating with a "child molester," because Frost invited (and then disinvited) folk singer Peter Yarrow to perform at a fund-raiser. Yarrow pleaded guilty in 1970 to a sexual offense involving a 14-year-old girl. A Democratic ad in Missouri ridicules Republican candidate Jeanne Patterson for appearing confused during a debate about how a bill becomes a law. "Can we risk Missouri's jobs on someone who doesn't know the job?" the ad asks.
The Colorado ads are meant to criticize Musgrave for voting for legislation the ad's funders say allowed nursing homes to continue charging patients "even after they're dead," and for failing to back greater financial support for veterans.
But it is the Senate races that have produced the most verbal venom. Some nine races are in play, and the results could change the control of the chamber, where Republicans hold a slim 51-48 majority. The chamber's Independent caucuses with the Democrats.
The Kentucky race, newly competitive, is perhaps the nastiest; the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee publicly charged that GOP Senator Jim Bunning is in "declining mental health" because of comments he has made, including accusing Democrat Daniel Mongiardo's staff of roughing up Bunning's wife. GOP state senators alternately called Mongiardo "limp-wristed," and one to whom the word "man" in "gentleman" does not apply.
Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, recently said that Mongiardo is "so dumb you have to doubt his mental capacity to serve."
Brad Woodhouse, spokesman for the DSCC, defended his group's comments, saying Democrats were merely countering GOP attacks. "There have been a lot of lines crossed. The line's been erased," Woodhouse said.
The bigger problem, analysts say, is what happens after the elections, when the survivors of the bitter campaigns will have to work together -- or at least, alongside each other -- on Capitol Hill.
