Fort Wayne News-Sentinel

Campaign 2006: Now, it’s personal

Parties’ attack ads ramp up the intensity
By Sylvia A. Smith
Washington editor

October 30, 2006

Northeast Indiana is about to send a liar to Congress.

Or so each of the candidates says.

In their debate and in commercials, both Rep. Mark Souder, R-3rd, and Democrat Tom Hayhurst have told voters that the other distorts the truth and maligns his character.

“The character attack he just made was disgusting,” Souder said of Hayhurst during a televised debate after Hayhurst said Souder had “abandoned his own promise” not to run for more than six terms.

“I’m tired of my opponent saying I lied,” Souder said. He is on the ballot for a seventh term.

A Hayhurst radio commercial says: “If Souder thinks character assassination is a Hoosier value, he’s definitely been in Washington too long.” In a TV ad, Hayhurst says, “Mark Souder has sunk to distorting my positions and attacking my character.”

The liar, liar, pants on fire theme of some political campaigns is normal – and nothing new, said James McCann, a Purdue University political science professor. He noted that the 1800 presidential campaign was brutal.

But if tit-for-tat name-calling is not unusual as campaigns get heated, it’s also milder in the Souder-Hayhurst race than in dozens of congressional contests around the country, including three fiercely fought races elsewhere in Indiana.

According to Democrat Joe Donnelly, Rep. Chris Chocola, R-2nd, “is part of a disgraced Congress.” Rep. Mike Sodrel, R-8th, said his Democratic opponent is “even liberal with the truth.”

Ads written by candidates’ campaign can be vicious, but when the national political parties have gotten involved this year, the Republican ads have been more personal than the Democrats’, according the Annenberg Political Fact Check. The nonpartisan organization affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania monitors the accuracy of politicians’ commercials, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases.

“Both political parties are functioning in the 2006 House races as factories for attack ads, but the National Republican Campaign Committee’s work stands out this year for the sheer volume of assaults on the personal character of Democratic House challengers,” according to a Fact Check report.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s ads “generally attack Republican candidates on policy issues or their performance in office – accusing them of casting votes favorable to drug or oil companies, or of supporting President Bush’s unpopular policies in Iraq or on Social Security,” the report said.

The NRCC ads in northeast Indiana on behalf of Souder call Hayhurst “liberal” and say he “wants to keep the death tax that forces some families to sell the farm or small business just to pay taxes.”

Hayhurst said that description of his position isn’t completely accurate because he supports inheritance taxes only for very wealthy estates.

The DCCC has not aired any ads on Fort Wayne TV stations.

Elsewhere in Indiana, there’s name-calling on both sides in ads paid for by the NRCC and DCCC.

Democrat Baron Hill supports “ugly attacks on our traditional values,” according to an NRCC ad on behalf of Sodrel in southeastern Indiana. According to the DCCC, Sodrel is a millionaire who’s making the “mess” in Congress worse.

Chocola is “out for himself,” the DCCC says in South Bend TV ads because he made “huge profits” in defense company stock sales.

Political Fact Check said an NRCC ad focusing on Democratic Brad Ellsworth, who is running against Rep. John Hostettler, R-8th, was factually wrong. The ad includes a claim by a prosecutor that Ellsworth, the sheriff of Vanderburgh County, tried to get his daughter’s speeding ticket dismissed. The ad includes an on-screen graphic that says, “Fixed Ticket.” That’s wrong, Political Fact Check said, because the ticket was paid.

“The prosecutor alleging that Ellsworth sought special treatment is a Republican who broached the issue for the first time in mid-October, a year and a half after the fact, and who says he does not recall Ellsworth’s exact words. Ellsworth says he was seeking to get his daughter into an existing program that allowed first-time offenders to keep their driving records clean in return for paying higher fines. In any event, the prosecutor said his daughter did not qualify, and the ticket stood,” Political Fact Check’s analysis says.

The NRCC has spent $6.5 million on ads advocating Republican candidates and $64.3 million on commercials attacking Democratic candidates. The DCCC has spent $4.6 million on ads for Democrats and $41.5 million on ads attacking Republicans.

Viewers may differ in what they consider an attack ad, McCann said.

“One person’s negative ad is another person’s frank issue discussion,” he said.