While most of us reserve going nuclear for crazy dictators and Republican Senate leaders, apparently Sue Kelly and her cronies have found a way to do it now. Taking a page from LBJ's 'Daisy' ad, Kelly's campaign has sent out a despicable mailer to the district alleging that John Hall will advocate actions expose the US to nuclear attack from Kim Jong Il.
(To take a line from a friend) Kelly must be Kim Jong Illin' if she thinks anyone's going to buy this.
|See the Mailer Here|
Kelly's attempt at smearing John Hall in the final days of this election is neither subtle, skillful, or original. Today, the Times Herald-Record is carrying this story and wisely portraying it as a last ditch effort to scrape out a win in a surprisingly (for an out-of-touch congresswoman) competitive district this year. I think they said it pretty well:
"The race for the 19th Congressional District must be closer than anyone thought."
It's also clear that this is a tactic being promoted from the national level... and I smell Karl Rove's grubby hands all over this one. Another frightened incumbent on the brink of losing his election is also using the mushroom cloud to attempt to scare voters into Republican arms: Rick Santorum.
The Santorum Ad
If you can take a minute to stop booing your computer screen, consider that this is Sue Kelly implicitly releasing her internal polling numbers. No way would a confident incumbent be risking an image as a moderate to slam an opponent with an image like this. I think Sue Kelly knows she's down and losing among independents. According to the last Majority Watch poll, Kelly was losing by about 20% points among independent voters. While her base Republican support is still strong (about 80%), it's nowhere near strong enough for her to win the election if Republicans don't come out in droves for her. It's a risky move to go full-tilt red-meat Republican in the final days for a moderate district, but clearly she's got to take that gamble. We all know her record too well now... there are very few "persuadable voters" left out there for Kelly.
Finally, I just wanted to point out a bit of irony on this point. Sue Kelly is attacking one of the most sane and consistent policies on Nuclear Weapons in the general political discourse today. John Hall knows that further proliferation of nuclear weapons in no-way helps the world's only superpower or its allies; they will only find their way into the hands on maniac dictators bent on maintaining control over their citizens by villainizing the international community after they inevitably impose sanctions. Of course, we NEED to take some sort of internationally cooperative action when nukes fall into the hands of the likes of Kim Jong Il, but we should also examine the factors strongly encouraging poor nations to build their own nuclear arsenal. Perhaps it is our own bombastic rhetoric. More likely, it's Bush/Kelly's complete disregard for international law and respect for the doctrine of Just War Theory. Sue Kelly's Iraq policy help antagonize the rest of the world and her own voters... maybe she should reconsider.
And I almost forgot about one gem of a bad idea: the missile defense shield. Wake up, guys. I know George Lucas redid the Star Wars trilogy, but it's still fiction. This monstrosity of a waste of money has only had one "success" and that was in a pre-planned scenario. To me, after well over a decade of work and billions of dollars spent, I think we should expect better than one success in a completely unrealistic set of circumstances.
I hope John keeps bringing the issue of nuclear leadership to the fore of debate. We need to talk about what the United States can do to prevent nuclear proliferation. Sue Kelly, we don't need another Cold War.
PS - This was my first diary... whoot.