Remember our good friend Scott Howell? Last we left him, he was busy creating ads for Jerry Kilgore, including one that even managed to bring Adolph Hitler into the Virginia governor's contest. Howell is also (in)famous for his "black hands" racist ad in the 2004 Oklahoma Senate contest and for linking war hero and triple amputee Max Cleland to Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. In other words, Scott Howell is vicious but effective, in that his candidates usually win. However, Howell - and those like him who appeal to the darkest in human nature, to utter cynicism, and to character assassination in the worst possible way -can be beaten, as evidenced by the Kilgore-Kaine contest. Anyway, the reason I'm writing about Howell again today is that the Washingtonpost.com's Chris Cillizza has new piece up that profiles Howell. Among other things, Cillizza says that Howell is "the man Democrats love to hate," while adding that "[l]iberal blogs refer to Howell as a 'media hit man' (not to mention a number of other derogatory terms not repeatable in the family-friendly Fix"). Howell, of course, doesn't back down one bit, saying that Democrats are just jealous of his success ("They don't like anyone who beats them.").
Hey, you know what? Perhaps there's some truth to that. Certainly, Democrats can learn ONE thing from Howell, which is his fierce desire to win. However, if "winning" means stooping to the level of Mr. "Black Hands"or his mentor Lee "Southern Strategy" Atwater, I say "no thank you." Atwater, for those of you who don't recall, was known as "the Darth Vader of the Republican party," and his reputation was well deserved. Atwater's stocks in trade were dirty tricks, character assassination, appeals to racism and xenophobia, and the use of phony "push polls" (e.g., if I told you that Democratic Candidate X was having sex with goats and then sacrificing the goats to Satan while screaming "I hate Jesus," would you be more or less likely to vote for him?). Here's Atwater on his in his infamous "Southern Strategy," which appealed directly to anti-black racism:
You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger.' By 1968 you can't say 'nigger' - that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites."And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me - because obviously sitting around saying, 'We want to cut this,' is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than 'Nigger, nigger.' "
Lovely, huh? Well, there's more. Atwater also mocked people for mental illnesses, as when he attacked Democratic Congressional candidate Tom Turnipseed as having been "hooked up to jumper cables" - electroschock treatments Turnipseed had received as a depressed 16 year old. Even Atwater, on his death bead, realized that he had gone too far on that one, apologizing to Turnipseed and calling the "jumper cable" campaign "one of the low points" of his career as a Republican hatchet man. Here's Atwater in February 1991, just before he died from an inoperable brain tumor:
My illness helped me to see that what was missing in society is what was missing in me: a little heart, a lot of brotherhood. The '80s were about acquiring -- acquiring wealth, power, prestige. I know. I acquired more wealth, power, and prestige than most. But you can acquire all you want and still feel empty. What power wouldn't I trade for a little more time with my family? What price wouldn't I pay for an evening with friends? It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth, but it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime. I don't know who will lead us through the '90s, but they must be made to speak to this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul.
Hmmm...which American political party has no heart, doesn't believe in brotherhood or campassion, and is obsessed with acquiring wealth, power, and prestige? And which American political party has been most "caught up in ruthless ambitions and moral decay" in recent years? That's right, if you answered "the Republican Party," you win the big prize: George Bush - worst President in U.S. history. You also win a divided nation, massive deficits (budget and trade), interference in the most intimate life and death decisions (remember Terry Schiavo), assaults on freedom and civil liberties, etc., etc. That's right, it's the Republican Party, hell bent on making sure the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, stem cell research is forbidden, church and state are not separated, and the constitution is trampled upon every day of the week.
And don't forget, Scott Howell and Lee Atwater - and others of their ilk in the Republican Party - are not aberrations. Instead, they epitomize the GOP and everything it stands for. I urge you to keep that fact in mind as the 2006 election cycle unfolds, including right here in Virginia with George Allen vs. James Webb. Let's see, how are they going to try and smear the former Reagan Navy Secretary and American Hero? What, that he didn't really earn his Navy Cross, Silver Star, two Bronze Star Medals, and two Purple Hearts? That he is "odd" because he writes best-selling books and wins Emmy Awards for his courageous reporting from Beirut while he's not fighting to put a statute of soldiers - including a black soldier - on the National Mall? Heh.
The sad thing is, you can't put anything past George Allen and whatever ruthless, slimeball Republican media consultants he hires. Watch out and mark my words: the Republicans will stop at nothing to hold "Urban Cowboy" George's Senate seat. Luckily, we in the Democratic and Progressive blogosphere are totally onto this garbage. And we're fighting back, hard. Could that be PART of the reason why the "Kilgore Hitler" ads didn't work this last time around? And why the "James Webb is not really an American Hero" ads won't work this time? Stay tuned...