Bauer attack ads: Loose with the facts
But a closer look at the race finds that Andre Bauer is playing extremely loose with the facts in his attack ads against Tom Rice. We'll address the facts we found regarding two claims made in his advertising:
1) "Gave to Jim DeMint's opponent". A search of FEC records (screen capture presented) indicated that Rice made a contribution to Mark McBride, who was another GOP candidate, a point that is mentioned in the fine print of the website for the ads, but most voters, who aren't likely going to the website, are going to miss this (if anything, McBride ran to the right of DeMint in that race). If the intent was to create the impression that Rice supported a liberal Democrat for the Senate, nothing could be farther from the truth.
On the website, Bauer adds that Rice never gave to DeMint, but it appears that Bauer has never given to DeMint either. We did a search of the FEC website and found that Bauer only made one federal race contribution - also in the 2004 cycle - to the Bush/Cheney re-election campaign.
In fact, Bauer's has given very little to any candidates at the state or federal level, with his biggest contribution being to Democratic State Senator Darrell Jackson from Richland County (shown . Jackson is considered one of the more liberal members of the Senate, thus questioning Bauer's ground to call another candidate out for who they do or don't support.
2) "Took money ... as good as a bailout". Bauer's ad didn't elaborate on this claim, but it might be fair to point out that Bauer accepted taxpayer money for a property that was bought for right-of-way on a Midlands highway project, getting a much higher payment after a meeting involving an SCDOT commissioner and Democratic State Senator. Would Bauer consider the real estate transaction with the state to be a taxpayer-funded bailout?
We don't have a problem with holding people accountable for their records, even though others may say negative advertising is wrong. In our humble opinion, we have no problem with "negative" advertising which presents information critical of candidates, but it's best when the facts being presented and/or critiqued in the ads are fairly and fully presented, which Bauer's attack ads aren't doing.
We're going to remain neutral on both this run-off race and the potential Democratic run-off for this seat, so if you see any funny business, please email the Blogland and we'll check into it.
We're going to remain neutral on both this run-off race and the potential Democratic run-off for this seat, so if you see any funny business, please email the Blogland and we'll check into it.
Hope this means you'll be coming back more - and be sure to add your thoughts some too. Join the discussion!