David Perdue, total slime and Republican for Senate
In 2002's Georgia Senate race, Saxby Chambliss defeated then-Sen. Max Cleland after running a notorious ad linking him to Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. In 2014's Georgia Senate race, David Perdue is
taking a page out of Chambliss's playbook. Perdue is running ads accusing Democratic candidate Michelle Nunn of having funded organizations linked to terrorists during her time running George H.W. Bush's Points of Light. What's more, Perdue's ads claim that Nunn has admitted this—in reality, a leaked Nunn campaign memo predicted that this was a "distortion" Republicans would attack her with. As for the supposedly terrorist-linked
organization in question:
Points of Light made no contributions to Islamic Relief USA, the group supposedly in question. PoL merely included Islamic Relief USA on a list of thousands of charities to which eBay users might donate proceeds of their sales.
OK, but Islamic Relief USA could still be a terrorist group, right?
No. To the contrary, Islamic Relief USA is also listed among the thousands of groups to which federal employees can contribute through automatic deductions in their paycheck, along with Human Life International (“… training, organizing, equipping pro-life leaders in more than 100 countries around the world”) and Heroes on the Water (” … helps warriors unwind, rehabilitate and reconnect with their family and community through kayak fishing”).
While George H.W. Bush has endorsed Perdue, his son
Neil Bush is not happy about this attack on Nunn and, by extension, Points of Light. He's even come to Nunn's defense on top of rejecting the smear of Points of Light:
“To attack an organization founded by my father, whose integrity is unimpeachable, to smear our organization for political gain, is in my opinion shameful,” Bush said. [...]
“I think he would say very glowing and positive things about her,” Bush said about his father’s feelings about Nunn. “I think he admires her leadership of the organization he founded. I think he has great respect for her and her family.”
Perdue for his part
doubled down, releasing a new ad making the same charges after Neil Bush's criticism. Apparently he's decided that linking Nunn to terrorism is worth drawing headlines like
"‘Terrorism’ smear against Nunn may be 2014’s worst" and
"Here It Is: The Flimsiest Campaign Attack Ad of 2014, Which Won’t Stop Running".