AZ Senate - No Money Down, $199 a Month!

You know the commercial, the one where a brash announcer, edgy cartoon graphics, and in-your-face Wagnerian horns tell you to "come on down" and get a new car for no money down and only one-ninety-nine a month. There's like a page of text at the bottom of the screen; it's too small to read and stays on only briefly, but you know what it says. It's saying there's no friggin' way you can buy that snazzy car for nothing down and $199 a month.

We all know the ad lies. Go down to the dealership and there'd be "delivery charges," "upgrades," "service fees," and other additions that would require a down payment (they'd call it a "dealer deposit" or something), and the $199, with all the franchise's tack-ons, taxes, and financing schemes, would be closer to $299. This isn't the Letterman-like irony we came of age in. Many of today's ads are just plain lies - from benign ones that we accept and largely ignore, to dangerous ones that potentially undermine democracy.

This masquerade extends far beyond selling cars and toothpaste - it goes to the intersection between corporate advertisers and the political structure that both sanctions them and benefits from them.

Tonight I saw commercials for the Petroleum Institute, Boeing, and Dow Chemical. They all featured pristine open spaces, clean towns, and shiny happy people. You'd swear they were selling something that cleans the air, saves forests, and builds healthy families. Yes, those three multinationals have been so wonderful for nature, for our communities, for foreign governments, and, most of all, for peace. And then my Hemingway crap detector really kicked in when, tonight from Phoenix, I saw a Jon Kyl commercial. It's difficult to think of a bigger supplicant to those three industries - Big Oil, Defense, Big Pharm - than Kyl, the Junior Senator from Arizona. You can check out the ad I saw tonight at http://www.jonkyl.com, where he pledges to "set the record straight."

Earlier Kyl ads I've seen were cribbed from his pal Bush's playbook, pounding away like that damn Head-On commercial: "Be very afraid, be very afraid, be very afraid." Terror! Illegal immigrants! They got nothin' else. But that doesn't seem to be working. While Kyl's been trumpeting multidimensional fear (Islam, Mexico, child molesters), Democrat Jim Pederson is gaining in the polls and is now within single digits, a reality that many in conservative Arizona could not have imagined six months ago.

Similar to other close, high-profile races in the West, like Tester-Burns in Montana, Pederson's strongest ally is the truth. No slime, no reality-bending. Just shine a light on the failures of this White House and its congressional teat suckers, like our man from Arizona. Kyl, on the other hand, can't wrap himself in anything that even resembles the shadow of truth. Iraq? A stronger middle class? America's standing in the world? Trade? Global warming? Pffft. For good reason, his ads barely mention those issues, so Kyl attacks millionaire Pederson's self-financed campaign, neglecting to mention he's a millionaire too. Or he spotlights Pederson's spending priorities ("taxes, taxes!"), overlooking the fact that these social programs amount to little more than a ten-cent pimple on the billion-dollar butt of Bush's war budget.  

Like other western Republicans, Kyl hopes to transfer Islam-o-fascist fear-mongering, which is working less and less for them, to the border. However, illegal immigration is a tough issue for Republicans to frame in a genuinely winnable way. The growth machine that defines the West has historically backed these very same Republicans, but that machine is extremely dependent on cheap labor - for construction, landscaping, hospitality, agriculture, big boxes, and restaurants, among many others. Of course, this net goes beyond these low-wage worlds, to the financial and corporate leviathans that feed them - banks, mortgage companies, developers, S&Ls, Bill Oil and Big Auto. These too have historically supported Kyl and other entrenched Republicans, so given a choice, Kyl and others, not really having a choice, have temporarily turned their backs on their low-rent friends ("just trust us for now"), and are standing tough against illegal immigration. Build walls. English Only. No benefits to the undocumented. They've calculated that being tough on the border hasn't yet failed, like being tough on Iraq has. They gotta be tough on something, and, gee, we noticed this week that their buddies at Boeing just received a $2 billion contract to create a virtual fence. Forget about the fact most illegals come through existing border stations (where we already have gates!) - not across the unprotected desert.

But it's questionable whether that strategy will work because the numbers aren't there. Sure, you're always going to scare and motivate some people, but if you add together the Hispanic vote, progressives, and a growth machine that relies on Mexican workers, you're always going to be the majority. So as the issue, it's a tough one for Republicans to gain votes beyond their radical base. It seems Kyl's people know that as well, based on the ad I saw tonight, where he says he's been keen for seniors and Social Security and, get this, Kyl's sayin' he's not one of Bush's boys! He looks right into the camera with a straight face and says he "never voted to cut Social Security" and he stood up against the President and his Big Oil cronies (aligning himself with that other rebel, McCain), because Bush's energy bill was a "top priority of oil companies but a bad deal for taxpayers." Hey, how `bout a new car for no money down and $199 a month!

So, I thought, okay, I'm in Arizona tonight; let me bop over to Project Vote Smart and check this guy's voting record - just over the last year on these two issues. Shall we? First, Social Security:

S-2730 (2006), provides additional access to Medicare Part D. Kyl: NO.
S-2020 (2005), extends protection to Medicare patients. Kyl: NO.
S-2357 (2005), increases Medicare premiums. Kyl: NO.
S-214 (2005), mandates that Medicare negotiate best drug prices. Kyl: NO.

Yes, he's been a champion for seniors, standing tall against the administration and Big Pharm. And did we forget to mention that Kyl led a group of 46 Senators this past March to revive Bush's plan to privatize Social Security? Go back a few more years and you'll find that Kyl voted against creating a reserve account that would ensure long-term solvency for Social Security. Is it any surprise groups like the Alliance for Retired Americans consistently rate him zero? Then we have his so-called split with Bush and Big Oil over energy policies. Hmmm.

S-3711 (2006), opens up Gulf of Mexico to more drilling, Kyl: YES.
S-1932 (2005), insures Alaska's legal rights in issues related to ANWR drilling. Kyl: NO.
S-2194 (2005), provides energy supplements to low income families. Kyl: NO.
S-791 (2005), encourages renewable energy development. Kyl: NO.
S-784 (2005), calls for reduced dependency on foreign oil. Kyl: NO.
S-168 (2005), keeps ANWR closed to drilling. Kyl: NO.

Oh, that three-year-old energy omnibus bill he digs up and talks about rejecting - so he can show he's not in lock-step with BushCo? That package included funding for energy conservation, as well as tax breaks for renewable energy. Kyl's record betrays a firm allegiance to too many corporate-political evils, the kind perfected by the Bush administration. It's difficult to find a place where Kyl detours: he's consistently voted for the flag desecration amendment, he's staunchly anti-choice, he cheer-leaded for the No Child Left Behind boondoggle, and most recently he voted against detainee judicial rights - all Bush positions. To suddenly define himself as a rebel, as someone who stands against BushCo and its corporate shills (because that's the only feasible political position), shows how hollow and desperate Kyl's campaign is.    

Just like those damn car commercials, whenever anyone faintly connected to this administration opens his or her mouth (like Rice yesterday), you really need to read the small print - where the facts are.