Senator Nancy King’s two new lit pieces targeting challenger Saqib Ali are malevolent masterpieces of mayhem. Brace yourselves, folks, for the most devastating attack mailers in MoCo!
These two mailers showed up very close together, with some households getting them on the same day. Such are the vagaries of working with mail companies.
POW!!!
KABOOM!!!
Until now, the standard for negative campaigning was set by the End Gridlock slate’s effort to defeat former Council Member Blair Ewing and former Senator Ida Ruben’s effort to get rid of Delegate Dana Dembrow, both of which succeeded. But King’s effort exceeds both of them in terms of the depth of her opposition research on Ali and the multitude of platforms she is using to convey it. The photos, the attack website, the attack blog and now the mailers probably constitute the most comprehensive campaign of political destruction ever conducted in MoCo.
Monday, August 30, 2010
The Most Devastating Attack Mailers in MoCo
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15 comments:
Our campaign's response to these unprecedented and misleading attacks can be found by visiting the Fight the Lies page of our website: http://www.ali4senate.com/beta/?page_id=90
As our volunteers continue to talk to voters across District 39, we are beginning to sense a serious backlash to the King Campaign's negative tactics.
Ben Shnider
Campaign Manager
Ali for Senate
@Ben
It doesn't seem unreasonable to me to raise these poiints about Delegate Ali. By my count he missed nearly 50 votes, not all of them in Tobacco/Alcohol, and he voted on other instances when similar issues were on the floor.
From my contacts across D-39, there doesn't seem to be much backlash, but outrage at your candidate's behavior. What demographics and communities have you noticed the "backlash" in? Would you care to elaborate for the sake of transparency?
Happy Ramadan to Delegate Ali, by the way.
Saqib's "Fight The Lies" page is a masterpiece of obfuscation and faux victimization.
Example: The Baltimore Sun (not Nancy King) caught Saqib bragging about how he took a furlough-related pay cut in 2010 when he in fact did not. Saqib's response was that he indeed took the furlough days for 2010 - but only after the Sun called him out on it last week! Saqib's response to the Sun was a bit of mea culpa (dog ate my homework), but it rings hollow.
Further, it was Saqib who said - categorically - that he did not vote on alcohol-related bills as a matter of "principle", but when it was pointed out that he voted on over 30 such bills just this past session his response is basically "well, you can't hold me to that".
It's not an attack if you can back up your statements, and Saqib has frankly made it easy for Sen. King.
Tom Steele
Tom Steele
I may have to re-think my previous position.
Yes...it's true.
Senator King may, in fact NOT be classy enough not to be directly responsible for this nonsense bit of advertising.
Hamza: I'm a registered voter in District 39...the people in my neighborhood around Montgomery Village pretty much tossed these mailers into the garbage the second they arrived, and the general consensus is that it's just more politicians attacking each other.
They want to know about issues, not who can put together a better hit-piece.
In fact, Ben, the backlash I've sensed is my own response to your persistent attacks on Nancy King and Saqib's self-victimization, which caused me to ask you to take me off of Saqibs' campaign mailing list (which is pretty drastic, since he's one of my neighbors, and someone I like personally, aside from politics), and which have turned me from a potential Ali primary voter to a definite King voter.
The other backlash I've sensed is the campaign's increasing desperation in the face of being called on its own nonsense, and on Saqib's own actions and record. You can quibble all you want about when the photo was taken (and I don't buy that it was necessarily taken on the date claimed), but Saqib's voting record, and his statements about his record, are pretty incontrovertible.
For the record, I'd have cheerfully voted for Saqib had he run for re-election. And I'll vote for him in the general election even if his (and your) nonsensical and insulting campaign tactics are successful.
In short, Ben, from the heart of one long-time MoCo voter and actual true blue Democrat: don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining.
Andy Marshall
Apparently Mike Miller thought Ida Ruben's infamous "Democratic Donkey" mailers in 2006 were a brilliant idea. It's one thing to blog this stuff (mostly inside baseball people read blogs), it's another thing entirely to mail it to constituents, who generally HATE this sort of thing.
And that doesn't even address the awful perception of an incumbent senator reduced to this sort of thing. Incumbent senators are supposed to ignore or make light of challengers, not attack them. This is potentially a fatal move, but on the other hand, the vitriol of this mailing suggests that Senator King may not like her chances and may not have many cards left to play.
No inside knowledge, just the ramblings of an interested observer who has plenty of experience with negative attacks in District 20. Adam's asked me to write about them and you can read my thoughts in a day or two.
Jonathan Shurberg
who still has no dog in this fight, but senses from afar that Delegate Ali has the distinct upper hand in District 39
@Andy:
To be honest with you, as a political advisor, I think this might have been the strategy all along. To wait until the last two weeks of the primary, and then share King's overwhelming opposition research with the public. The question what stands to be answered is whether the message is being delivered in an effective manner.
MPW: is there anyway you can get an intern to develop metrics for us to use to really figure out how fluid and effective the blog-site plus the mailers have been? (Poll?) Even anecdotal information from throughout D-39 could help us analyze whether King is winning this fight or if Ali still has the advantage.
@Ben: Still waiting for a response from you.
Hamza -
I'd say this mailer was absolutely devastating. The visual alone - from three different angles (so much for the "Photoshopped" excuse) is a killer. Combine it with a factual dissection of his voting record and this is a tough one to counter.
We can argue about who went negative first (although to my mind the Ali campaign went there before he even filed), but there's no doubt Ali is in a weaker position at this point.
Tom Steele
Tom:
You're a King loyalist. Your comments make that clear. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that; good for you. But really, do you think that after having been so publicly identified as a King supporter, "I'd say this mailer was absolutely devastating" really means anything? The same would be true if a Saqib acolyte said the ad was worthless -- that wouldn't be persuasive to you, right?
The election isn't going to be decided based on what you think or what the Ali people think, either. It's going to be decided based on what the average voter thinks, and the for the reasons I stated in my earlier comment, I think the average voter is going to HATE this mailer. It goes against every rule in the book.
There's a place for nasty, don't get me wrong. Generally speaking, however, mail is not that place.
Jonathan Shurberg
Tom and Hamza:
No responses to my statements/comments?
How Republican of you.
Jonathan -
With all due respect, I live in the district and I'm much more in tune with this race than you are; let's just say I'm a lot closer to it. Am I a King "loyalist"? Yes, but not without cause.
Don -
Respond to what - that the voters want to know more about the issues? No argument there, but I fail to see where Saqib has contributed anything of substance on that front. When he's not taking credit for bills he had nothing to with, or quoting this blog completely out of context and claiming that as an endorsement, or trying to have it both ways on bills he may or may not vote for out of principle, or generally whining about what a meanie King is for using his record against him, he's trying to paint a sitting Democratic Senator as some kind of Rove-style Republican (see this week's mailer, among others). There's so little seperating these two on any meaningful level that his only play has been to paint Sen. King as the "bad guy". Issues? He doesn't want to talk about issues - he loses that debate in no time flat. He's great at promises, but any objective look at his record in Annapolis reveals someone who has served one term in the House and managed to get next to nothing done, and he wants to replace a Senator with a far more impressive list of accomplishments? I've seen this movie before, twenty years ago in District 18, and it was an absolute disaster.
Tom Steele
Jonathan, I've been giving your comments some thought since you posted them yesterday. I think you're right in a generic sense. How right you are in the context of the D39 race depends entirely on how much attention people are paying, and the perspective from which they're paying it. Ali is known well enough in the district that I suspect that some D39 voters aren't sure which candidate is the incumbent Senator.
Hamza, there's only going to be one valid measure of effectiveness, right? I mean, we'll have trouble separating the impact of the mailer (and Ali's response) from other factors, once everything's counted. But the MPW poll today isn't exactly scientific, either.
You may be right that King's people have been planning this all along. It certainly reeks of professional politicking, regardless of which side you're on. I honestly don't get how anyone can view this spat with any degree of objectivity and conclude that Ali's been victimized here, any more than I'd conclude that Nancy King isn't a machine politician. I've said how I'm voting and how I got there; that aside, the substantive difference between the two candidates on any significant issue is that Ali's vote is less predictable (for good or bad, on which we each might reasonably differ).
Don, if you've talked to enough of your neighbors to be able to suss out a consensus...well, I salute your energy level, Sir. Although I might wish that your neighbors recycled more.
Andy Marshall
@Mr. Mewha: I ran the statewide college democrats, tripling their size last year. That makes me the least likely to be Republican commenting on this post.
That being said, I did not know you required a response. I apologize.
Regardless of who wins being remembered for insulting others who happen to disagree with you is unbecoming, and seldom forgotten.
Furthermore Mr. Mehwa, your point has several times been responded to by multiple comments saying the opposite of your claims of the tide turning against Senator King.
Also, in the interests of factual information, I went further to request a poll on this very topic. MPW either thought my idea worthy, or great minds think alike, because lo and behold, there is now a poll on this blog where the "pro-King" view is creaming Ali's meagre claims of being bullied by one of the nicest women in Annapolis.
Given that Republicans are Americans, and people, too, I think that is a very immature post from an individual sitting on the Legislative Committee for the MoCo Council of PTAs. I urge you to consider your responsibilities as a proactive member of our community the next time you post.
(Don Mewha is currently Legislative Chair for the Montgomery County Council of Parent-Teacher Associations: http://www.mccpta.com/legislation.html)
Mr. Khan,
While I appreciate your advice on how I should or should not behave, I should like to point out that my term ended with the end of the last school year. I am no longer the Legislative Chair of MCCPTA, merely a private citizen from District 39.
MCCPTA got a first hand look at the budget process over the past several years, which is why it sets my teeth on edge the moment I hear anyone waxing lyrical about Senator King's involvement in 'saving the school district' money.
Honestly, if anyone deserved credit for that, I would point to Senator Madaleno.
I'm not comfortable discussing the loybbying process that we undertook on behalf of our children and our schools, but suffice it to say, it helped inform my choice in this primary.
Tom:
If it walks like a duck...and quacks like a duck, chances are, it's a duck.
Whether it's Senator King or Senator Miller, somebody's wallowing in the mud over on that side...and all that tends to do according to every bit of data I've ever seen is drive down interest in an election and give voters a bad taste in their mouth.
Has Delegate Ali needled at Senator King repeatedly? Certainly.
Has Senator King now responded far in excess of anything Delegate Ali has done? Without a doubt.
These are both supposed to be Democrats...the same party...ostensibly even on the same side, but the sitting Senator has frequently used personal attacks in direct quotes (deranged, etc). Either she has a personal dislike for the Delegate, or poor self control. In either case, its unbecoming.
::shrugs::
Issues...not attacks.
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