Echo Chamber of the Left: a Success Story in Progress [UPDATED 9/2]

A great example of the power of dailykos and the netroots is building right now in the Rhode Island Senate race.

The issue at hand is Senator Lincoln Chafee's refusal, twice, to disavow a patently racist attack ad that the National Republican Senatorial Committee is running on his behalf. The ad links Mayor Laffey's acceptance of Mexican ID cards for city services in Cranston, RI to terrorism and 9/11. The ad's visuals show brown-skinned people and the Mexican flag, then shadowy figures entering government buildings and boarding airplanes. The words "Risk to Our Security!" are superimposed.

The larger issue is the power of the blogosphere to help keep an issue like this alive, when before, the pro-Chafee mainstream media would have simply let the issue die out. We have an echo chamber now. It doesn't have nearly the reach of the Limbaugh/Fox/CNN Wurlitzer, but it's something.

Follow the whole timeline below the fold....

??? (start date unknown): NRSC begins running racist attack ad on behalf of Senator Chafee on local broadcast and cable television.

Wednesday August 23, 3:59pm: kos front-pages a YouTube capture of the ad: "Scaaaaary brown people are invading Rhode Island."

Wednesday August 23, 4:25pm: local blog rifuture.org posts about the ad, calling it "dirty, malicious and racist."

Wednesday August 23, 8pm: the first Laffey-Chafee televised debate. Chafee is given an explicit opportunity to speak out against this specific ad:

Mark Arseno: THE NATIONAL REPUBLICAN SENATORIAL COMMITTEE IS OUT WITH A VERY NEGATIVE AD ON MAYOR LAFFEY REGARDING IMMIGRATION.

THIS IS YOUR CHANCE TO EMBRACE OR DISAVOW THESE ADS COMING FROM OUTSIDE GROUPS.

SHOULD THEY TAKE THEM DOWN?

Senator Chafee: FIRST OF ALL, YES, WE SPEND ENORMOUS AMOUNTS OF MONEY ON THESE ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS WERE THAT'S AN IMPORTANT PART OF EVERY CAMPAIGN BUT I THINK THESE DEBATES ARE EVEN MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANY KIND OF ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN.

IT'S AN ABILITY TO BE NEXT TO EACH OTHER, EXCHANGING OUR DIFFERENCES AND TRYING TO EXPLAIN OUR VOTES AND OUR POSITIONS ON ISSUES SO I THINK DEBATES ARE VERY, VERY IMPORTANT.

GREAT PLEASURE TO BE HERE THIS EVENING.

AS FAR AS THESE OUTSIDE GROUPS CAMPAIGNING, THAT'S THE LAW. AND THERE'S NO COORDINATION BETWEEN THE CAMPAIGN AND THESE OUTSIDE GROUPS.

(Mind you, the "outside group" in this case is the National Republican Senatorial Committee, consisting of his colleagues. A single phone call or public comment is all it would take to have that ad stopped.)

Friday August 25, 10:48am: I post a dailykos diary and rifuture.org comment urging the Whitehouse campaign to call Chafee out on his failure to disavow the ad, in the context of the Republican pattern of racism this election season. freedc comments that the attack should be carried out by proxy.

Saturday August 26, 8:00pm: the second televised Chafee-Laffey debate. Chafee was asked about the ad again and explicitly defended it as "accurate". [Does anyone have his exact words?] Tom N on rifuture.org comments:

At Saturday night's debate, Chafee even embraced this awful ad more saying it's "accurate". He thinks illegal immigrants are terrorists? I think Chafee is really losing it. He's so controlled by his Washington handlers and the national Republican operatives, he's lost sight of who he used to be. I can tell you one thing, John Chafee would have had something to say about this ad.

(John Chafee, of course, is Linc's father, the beloved former RI Governor and Senator.)

Monday August 28, 11:18am: State Senator Juan Pichardo, the first Latino State Senator in Rhode Island history, writes a public letter to Chafee demanding that he denounce the ad. The excellent, hard-hitting letter is posted in its entirety on rifuture.org:

I am writing to express my deep disappointment with your unwillingness to denounce a highly charged and misleading television ad produced by the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee (NRSC) in support of your campaign. This ad is clearly designed to play to voters' worst fears about immigration and terrorism. I urge you to condemn this advertisement and call upon the NRSC to cease airing it on your behalf immediately.

Tuesday August 29: Pichardo's letter hits the Providence Journal, Associated Press, and other news outlets.

Wednesday August 30 UPDATE: The ad is condemned by the League of United Latin American Citizens and the DNC's Hispanic Caucus. No response from Mr. Chafee yet.

Thursday August 31 UPDATE: Chafee digs himself in deeper! The ProJo's political columnist asked him about the ad, and reported:

Why won't Sen. Linc Chafee stand up to the National Republican Senatorial Committee over an ugly, inflammatory TV ad that even he worries might stereotype Hispanics as it attacks primary challenger Steve Laffey on immigration issues? ...

First, Chafee and the TV spot. I'm less interested in the NRSC message -- that Cranston's acceptance of Mexican identification cards can threaten American security -- than I am about the tone, especially the pictures of Latinos.

State Sen. Juan Pichardo, a Latino, fears the ad's script and imagery will engender "fear" and lead to "prejudice and suspicion toward the Hispanic community." Calling on Chafee to denounce the spot and to ask the NRSC to remove it, Pichardo wrote, "I have never known you to be the type of individual to endorse these types of attacks."

"I understand," Chafee told me Tuesday. But he said Pichardo is a Democrat. So what?

Then Chafee said, "I do agree on some of the points he makes because the facts are that immigration covers a whole host of people" -- Irish among them.

But, in the same cop-out Laffey and other pols use in reference to outside committees, Chafee said he doesn't control the NRSC. And he said that if he denounced this spot, it would set a precedent. "Every ad -- there'd be somebody with a microphone saying, 'Please denounce the ad.' " Hmm.

Hmm indeed! This response of Chafee's was beautifully paraphrased by local blogger Tom Kalinowski:

[Columnist Charlie Bakst] asked Linc about the ad, and Linc basically said, "I'm not going to do anything about it, because if I denounce this ad, I'll be expected to denounce every racist ad that's run on my behalf."

Friday September 1: After the NRSC had already pulled the ad (saying "it had run its course"), Chafee addresses a gathering of Latino leaders protesting outside his office, saying he had in fact complained to the NRSC about the ad. "I never saw it until it was on everybody's TV. I saw it when everybody else saw it. I had the exact same feeling, and once you get into stereotyping or any kind of zeroing in on any population, it's not fair," the senator said. ProJo article:

Senator Juan Pichardo, D-Providence, wrote a letter to Chafee a week ago, urging the senator to denounce the ad and try to get it pulled. Yesterday, Pichardo said, "The main point is we should not be portraying the immigrant community as terrorists -- it doesn't belong in Rhode Island."

Immigrant community ire heightened after Chafee called the ad "accurate" during a Saturday night debate broadcast on Channel 10 (WJAR). Commenting on Chafee's complaint to the NRSC member, Pichardo and others at the news conference called it "too little, too late."

"If he felt that way, he should have tried to have it pulled in the beginning," Pichardo said, adding that the real focus should be on working toward immigration reform.

State Rep. Grace Diaz, D-Providence, said it's like being sick and waiting too long before getting a prescription. She added, "We are working so hard to make sure that [Anglo] citizens understand we are not terrorists." The Laffey campaign weighed in yesterday as well.

"During the debate, Senator Chafee called the attack ad accurate, and now that the ad has run its course, he is conveniently changing his mind," said Laffey spokeswoman Nachama Soloveichik. "Rhode Islanders deserve a senator who knows where he stands, not a senator who keeps changing his mind."

End of story?

This story has real merit, it goes right to the heart of Chafee's character, how desperate he is to win his primary, and how the heavyhanded tactics of the national GOP can be made to backfire if people pay attention.

But even more, it's wonderful to see a story like this find its legs and get mainstream coverage, aided by the grassroots energy of the blogs.