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Home > Blogs > Ohio politics > Archives > 2008 > August > 15
Friday, August 15, 2008
Eye on Ohio: “Punch” ad for Obama
The ad: “Punch,” 30 seconds.
Producer: Barack Obama campaign.
Where to see it: It’s airing on Ohio TV stations.
Script (Chris Fisher): “If DHL — if something happens — it’s going to be like a ghost town.”
(Ed Rutherford): “I thought I was doing a good job providing for my family. And to have that taken away….”
(Male announcer): “In Washington, John McCain helped pave the way for foreign-owned DHL to take over an American shipping company. McCain’s campaign manager was lead lobbyist for the deal. Now, thousands of Ohio jobs at risk.”
(Rutherford): “It’s tough times. When it’s a foreign entity, coming in and sucker punching us. That’s how this felt.”
(Obama): “I’m Barack Obama and I approved this message.”
Video:The commercial opens with interviews with Wilmington-area workers whose jobs depend on the DHL hub. McCain is shown getting off a plane. A headline from the Los Angeles Times flashes: “DHL Deal Gone Sour Haunts McCain in Ohio.” Obama is shown speaking to a crowd.
Analysis: It’s possible for every fact in a political ad to be true, but the sum total to be misleading. Such is the case here. • True: Sen. McCain did help kill a Senate amendment that would have discouraged the German-owned DHL from taking over Airborne Express. • True: DHL paid McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, $185,000 to lobby against that amendment, according to lobbyist disclosure reports. • True: In May, DHL announced it would contract with UPS to fly its packages, which would result in the loss of 8,200 Ohio jobs at DHL’s Wilmington hub. Now, connect the dots: 8,200 jobs may be lost because of McCain. It’s impossible to know whether the Ohio jobs would be more secure under an American-owned DHL. The same foreign owners made significant investments — and added 1,000 jobs — in Wilmington after buying Airborne Express. And it’s not like the lost jobs are going overseas: Unlike manufacturing, the delivery of packages in the United States is a service that can’t be outsourced. In fact, UPS has said that the DHL deal will result in an unspecified number of additional UPS jobs in Louisville. Factcheck.org, an independent political truth squad at the independent Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, said the ad “paints a false picture.” Still, it’s a powerful argument for those who are likely to be out of work. Ed Rutherford, 47, of Morrow, is a pilot for ASTAR Air Cargo Holdings, an American-owned DHL contractor. An Obama supporter who considers himself a political independent, he said he believes his job would be safe if DHL were an American-owned company. “What I would like to get across is that McCain did come up to Wilmington and had a private meeting with some business leaders and other people to see what he could do to save our jobs. I certainly appreciate his current efforts to do what he can,” he said. His appearance in the Obama commercial was “not really an anti-McCain statement, but just to say that this is a tough time for a lot of us here,” Rutherford said. Twice in the ad, Rutherford fought tears. “He was surprised that he choked up,” Mary, his wife, said. “But that was real.”
Gregory Korte is a reporter at the Cincinnati Enquirer. Email: gkorte@enquirer.com.
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Eye on Ohio: “Taxman” ad for McCain
The ad: “Taxman,” 30 seconds.
Producer: McCain campaign.
Where to see it: It recently began airing in battleground states, including Ohio.
Script Narrator: “Celebrity? Yes. Ready to lead? No.
“Obama’s new taxes could break your family budget. The press warns the ‘taxman cometh.’ Obama’s taxes mean ‘higher prices at the pump.’ Obama’s taxes a ‘recipe for economic disaster.’
“Higher taxes. Higher gas prices. Economic disaster.
“That’s the real Obama.”
McCain: “I’m John McCain, and I approved this message.”
Video: The ad opens with footage of Obama before a huge crowd and camera flashes while people chant his name. It cuts to video of a family with two young children and a stack of bills on the table, a worried-looking white couple standing at a window, and a young couple. Each scene has ominous quotes from newspaper editorials along the bottom of the screen. Then it goes to a smiling Obama and flashes, “Higher Taxes,” “Higher Gas Prices,” “Economic Disaster.” It ends with a photo of McCain, with softer lighting and music.
Analysis: Once again, the McCain campaign is branding Obama as a celebrity and a tax-hiker. Viewers are hit over the head with the suggestion that Obama lacks substance and that he is dangerous. The narrator warns that Obama’s new taxes could break your family budget, but leaves out the part that the families most likely to see tax increases under Obama would be making more than $250,000 a year. In fact, Obama and McCain offer starkly different approaches to tax policy. Obama has proposed extending the Bush tax cuts for all but the wealthiest Americans, and he wants to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit, expand the child-care tax credit and eliminate taxes for senior citizens making less than $50,000. McCain’s tax policy calls for cutting taxes for all income groups, extending the Bush tax breaks for everyone, including the wealthy, and chopping corporate tax rates from 35 percent to 25 percent. After the “Taxman” ad was unveiled, the Obama campaign responded that Obama will cut taxes for the middle-class, while McCain will give new tax breaks to big business.
Laura Bischoff is a reporter in the Columbus Bureau of the Dayton Daily News. Her e-mail address is lbischoff@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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The name’s spelled J-E-R-R-Y
If all you know about Jerry Springer is his tawdry television show, you might think it a little peculiar that a serious candidate for Congress would invite him to become the face of her campaign.
That’s in essence what Democrat Jane Mitakides did this week when Springer showed up at her Washington Twp. home for a fund raiser in her effort to unseat Republican Rep. Mike Turner in the 3rd Congressional District.
The tabloid talk show host had barely crossed the threshold when Laura Bischoff of the DDN asked the most pertinent question of the evening: Does your presence, in balance, help or hurt? You can listen to his answer on Laura’s podcast. Scroll down the podcast directory and you’ll also come across the Republican Party’s predictable (but still funny) rejoinder.
I first met Springer four years ago at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. He was not the whack job I thought he would be. Just the opposite. He comes across as sincere, intelligent, articulate, informed and passionate about issues near and dear to Democrats. The top of his list during his talk at Mitakides’ house: health care reform and education.
Spend a few minutes with Springer and it’s easy to see how he became mayor of Cincinnati, and you can’t help but wonder what might have been if he’d stayed in politics.
But, he says, he never left. “Every single week, unless I’m out of the country, I do something political.” Mostly that involves barnstorming, writing checks and helping Democrats raise money.
“I happen to be an American citizen. I take that very seriously having been an immigrant. Trust me I’m not in politics to make money. This isn’t going to make me famous. I’m as serious as I can be as a human being. I love this country and every day that I’m breathing I take citizenship really very seriously.”
As for the Turner campaign’s statement that it was “pitiful” that Mitakides brought him to Dayton, Springer replied:
“He should be debating her. If he wants to come on ‘America’s Got Talent’ and debate me, that’s fine.”
Funny stuff, but the question lingers: Is inviting Springer into the campaign a plus or a minus for Mitakides?
The standard used to be that it didn’t matter as long as you spelled the name right.
With a name like Mitakides, and with her need to build name recognition, that might still hold true.
Jeff Bruce is the Journalist in Residence at Wright State University. You may email him at jeffbruce@aol.com. For more election news, go to the Dayton Daily News home page, click on News, then Politics.
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Former U.S. Rep. Bob Ney released from federal custody
You never know who you’ll see at the corner of Broad and High streets right in the middle of downtown Columbus.
About 1:30 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 15, I saw and talked with former Ohio Congressman and now ex-con Bob Ney, who was released earlier in the day from a federal halfway house in Cincinnati after serving 17 months of a 2 1/2-year sentence in connection with trading his influence for golf trips, donations and other gifts from once-powerful lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Republican Ney told me he lost weight in prison and had given up drinking and smoking. He talked affectionately about a new grandchild. He also said he had a job with Ellen Ratner of Talk Radio News Service.
