November 01, 2004

Conservative attack ads have been playing extra dirty? The Ashley's Story ads, if they're not being shown in your market, show Bush comforting the daughter of a 9/11 victim. It's meant to be a serious tear-jerker. Ashlee's Story, on the other hand, points out that these ads are funded by the Progress for America Voter Fund, a conservative group behind a number of anti-Kerry attack ads. The donations raised by this play for people's emotions go to buy air time for other PFA ads.

It just seems a little dirty to me, to invoke people's sympathy like this and then use the proceeds to sling mud. If the donations ($3.3 million when the ad debuted) went anywhere near the families of 9/11 victims, it would be one thing to call up the ghost of tragedy. However, it's made clear that donations are used to buy air time. They even suggest donating exactly $204.77, the cost of one ad in a key market. More info at Ashlee's Story.

posted by fondue 20 years ago
  • Thankfully they don't have much more time to donate to get those things on the air.
  • It begs the question of what happens to all those donations when a candidate loses. Does the organization sleep for a few years?
  • Freedom is speech is a double edged sword - but to blunt one side only serves to make it a scythe. One's philosophical opposites, no matter which side you're one, always seem to tread the edge of civility, if only because they are whom you feel are wrong from the outset, and what defense of wrongness is not egregious?
  • Take a quick look at Brookes Story.
  • Just keep repeating...one more day...one more day...one more day... plus the inevitable weeks and weeks of legal challenges to demanded recounts etc...
  • Ashleigh → Ashley → Ashlee → Ashlii? → Ashly? → Ashliy? → ...
  • And also worth noting is that everyone in that ad happens to be from Ohio and they never miss a chance to slip that in when they show the person's name. I guess it is a good thing that Bush happened to show compasion in a battleground state and not New York where the majority of those directly affected live. Purely a coincidence, I am sure...
  • Freedom of speech, duh. Having it doesn't necessarily connote competence IN it. *smacks forehead*
  • AshLeE*
  • I think Ashley's sexy... tragedy turns me on.
  • Aw, De baser be wrong to lust.
  • Seriously... I'd comfort her with my flight stick... we'd bring down the house...
  • wrong....so wrong