Ugliest Republican of the Day II: Elizabeth Dole

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I don't follow North Carolinian politics all that closely, so I'll let The Charlotte Observer explain:

In a new TV ad that must have the late Sen. Helms smiling and cheering from the great beyond, the Dole campaign has attacked her opponent, Democratic state Sen. Kay Hagan of Greensboro, as "godless." Hagan attended a September fundraiser in Boston sponsored by dozens of people and co-hosted by two persons associated with a group called Godless Americans PAC. Dole's ad says Hagan took "godless" money. Hagan's campaign says she did not receive money from the PAC, though she did get money from one of the co-hosts. She has demanded Dole halt the ad.

Hagan's attendance at any fundraiser and acceptance of a contribution is a fair topic for comment. Yet Dole has resorted to the Big Lie technique, morphing a kernel of truth into a monumental fiction.

How so? The Dole campaign stepped across a broad line, portraying Hagan as not Christian and suggesting she does not believe in God. The Dole ad shows a picture of Hagan while a woman's voice, not Hagan's, intones, "There is no God."

This is indecent. It is the modern-day version of [Helms's notorious] "white hands" ad, a lie born of Dole's desperation in a race in which she has trailed for weeks. It is also a deliberate attempt by Dole's campaign not just to distort the truth, but to shatter Hagan's admirable record as an elder for more than a decade in Greensboro's First Presbyterian Church, as a Sunday School teacher and a volunteer in her church's fundraising campaigns, worship services and community service programs.

*****

This ad is something else, an attack on a Christian woman's faith against all evidence to the contrary. It is wrong. It may well backfire on Dole.

It has no place in N.C. politics. Unless she admits this egregious, shameful mistake and acts appropriately, Elizabeth Dole has no place in N.C. politics, either

Very well editorialized. But I'd say she has no place in the Senate regardless. All this ad does is confirm what a desperate and vicious woman she has become. Let's hope the voters of North Carolina have finally moved past the divisive politics of Jesse Helms and reject Dole decisively on Tuesday.

(From AMERICAblog: "Hagan hits back on Dole." Effectively, I might add.)

**********

UPDATE: For more on the Dole-Hagan race, see CNN, out with a new poll that has Hagan up by 9 points, 53 to 44.

At WaPo, Cillizza has the two ads.