Negative ads financed by religious groups backfire
A particularly mean-spirited political commercial appeared here in Minnesota - as well as several other markets around the nation - during the last moments of the presidential campaign.
The 30-second ad featured a Catholic priest, the Rev. Lawrence Cameron Battle, who stood by a cross and told viewers in effect that it would be a sin to vote for Bill Clinton. As Battle spoke, the face of the president appeared and the word "SHAME" flashed on and off the screen.
I called Al Rhomberg, a volunteer organizer for the sponsoring group, the Catholic Coalition in California, to ask about the priest and the ad. Rhomberg said Battle is not an actor and that he really is a Catholic priest.
The tape, he said, was produced at KESQ-TV in Palm Desert, Calif., for the Catholic Coalition, an arm of Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition. Rhomberg refused to disclose the identities of local donors, who paid to have the ad run in the Twin Cities area the day before the election.
As you probably know, the Internal Revenue Service frowns on religious groups campaigning for a particular candidate or a particular political party. Rhomberg says the Catholic Coalition has no tax status - that it is neither for-profit nor nonprofit.
I don't understand how that can be, but I do know the IRS can deny a group nonprofit status if IRS rules are violated.
About the same time this ad began running in California, the retired archbishop of New Orleans, Philip Hannan, called a news conference, which had been approved by the current archbishop. Hannan told the press about the same thing, that it would be a sin to vote for candidates who support abortion rights, especially Clinton.
Americans United for the Separation of Church and State immediately filed a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of New Orleans to stop Hannan from continuing his campaign.
Rhomberg says the Catholic Coalition ad was not intended to be used nationwide. But after viewers in early markets saw the ad, they apparently got on the Internet and quickly spread the word. In every location where the ad was broadcast, anonymous donors paid for the air time, Rhomberg said.
The controversy had familiar echoes in the hotly contested Senate race in Iowa, where two Catholics - incumbent senator Tom Harkin and Republican candidate Jim Ross Lightfoot - squared off. Lightfoot allowed the airing of a similar ad in which a Catholic priest admonished voters not to vote for Harkin. But the tactic backfired and Harkin was easily re-elected.
Interestingly, in Minnesota, the two major party candidates for U.S. Senate were both Jewish: Democratic incumbent Paul Wellstone and former U.S. Sen. Rudy Boschwitz, the Republican.
For months, the Republicans, apparently with Boschwitz's approval, ran ads calling Wellstone an "ultra-liberal" and "embarrassingly liberal." But the ads were so heavy-handed that people pulled away from Boschwitz, allowing Wellstone to easily win re-election.
Six years ago, Wellstone, a college professor, and Boschwitz, a two-term senator who owned a chain of home-improvement stores, also went head to head. Boschwitz became so desperate to hold onto his office that he sent a letter to the Jewish community that said Wellstone had not raised his children in the Jewish faith.
The insinuation was that Boschwitz was a better Jew than Wellstone. That strategy also backfired when local rabbis denounced the tactic, and Wellstone pulled off an upset.
Obviously, negative ads and campaigns don't work. But the bigger question is, what do negative ads contribute to the common good?
They turn people away from the political process and from politicians in general. They convince us the entire process is dirty and mean. And they poison the minds of young people who watch television and decide politics is a sleazy way to make a living.
Clark D. Morphew
11-9-96
