According to
the NY Times' Caucus Blog, Ken Mehlman announced on CNN's the Situation Room
that the offsensive Republican ad had been pulled from the airwaves.
The Caucus has been swamped, swamped, by readers talking about this ad, which includes a lot of to-and-fro about Mr. Ford receiving money from the pornography industry (which he returned) and ends with a blond (white) woman coyly urging him to call her.
(Way to go, Kossacks; your voices were heard!)
Mr. Ford's opponent, Bob Corker, the Republican former mayor of Chattanooga, asked that the commercial be dropped late last week. But Mr. Mehlman insisted, even today, that because of campaign finance laws forbidding the coordination between national parties and independent expenditures, had no authority to get it off the airwaves.
More below the fold...
Mehlman changed his tune Wednesday afternoon, according to this CNN transcript:
Mr. Mehlman: As you remember I made some news last year when I spoke at the NAACP and as chairman of the Republican Party said it was wrong for Republicans did that in the past. I was condemned by some within my own party. I stand behind that statement. I would never countenance an ad that does that. I think what our party is doing is working to focus on the issues. The ad is down now. And the focus I think is going to be on taxes, it's going to be on defense, it is going to be on judges and issues like that in the Senate race.
Wolf Blitzer: Looking at it now, knowing everything you know, was it a racist ad?
Mr. Mehlman: Again, I stand behind what I said before, which is as someone who is extraordinarily sensitive to it, I don't believe that it was. At the same time there are good people on both sides who believe otherwise.
I respect where they're coming from. I hope they do the same with where I'm coming from.
Yeah, Kenny, we all respect you tremendously.
He didn't explain how he managed to get the ad pulled, or whether he circumvented all those technical issues in campaign finance laws that he cited repeatedly on Tuesday as obstacles to his getting involved in dealing with this commercial.
Danny Diaz, a spokesman for the R.N.C., told Tennessee reporters that the ad had "run its course." But the Chattanooga Times Free Press interviewed local television station officials:
Mike Costa, vice president and general manager of WTVC-TV 9, said the station has replaced the spot featuring the woman and replaced it with another RNC ad that claims Rep. Ford took money from "porn moguls" and "wants to give the abortion pill to our schoolchildren."
Tom Tolar, president and general manager of WRCB-TV 3, said the station has received instructions from its advertising agency to replace the spot.
That's the second ad we told you about earlier, the one that the Ford campaign has complained is inaccurate on its face. And stay tuned, talkingpointsmemo says some television stations are refusing to run the second ad.
WAY TO GO FOLKS! ANOTHER TRIUMPH FOR THE PROGRESSIVE BLOGOSPHERE!
UPDATE 8:56pm EDT:
Here's a
link to CNN's transcript (Scroll about halfway down, or jsut search for Mehlman). In addition to stonewalling on the Ford Ad, Mehlman tried to deflect Blitzer's questions about the Michael J. Fox/Limbaugh fracas by
changing the subject to Jim Talent
Wolf, I think what's going on is that Mr. Fox is putting forward his view on a critically important issue. Obviously, everyone can and I very much do sympathize with his plight or the plight of anyone who has an illness like that.
But here is the interesting question. This was an ad against Jim Talent, Jim Talent supports stem cell research. The fundamental question is what kind of stem cell research should the federal taxpayer fund? And what he believes is that it ought to fund adult stem cell research that doesn't destroy some life in order to benefit other life.
What an idiot.