Can’t wait until July 22nd gets here.
That’s because people I interact with in Forsyth and North Fulton say they’re already tired of political ads as the ones paid for by third parties get nastier, with untruths and half-truths ramped up to the max. It looks as though these ads will only end with the runoff election on the fourth Tuesday in July. That is until the next round starts for everyone else in the general election in November.
In the hotly contested runoff, Georgia Republicans must choose between businessman David Purdue and Rep. Jack Kingston for the right to face Democrat Michelle Nunn in the November general election to succeed Sen. Saxby Chambliss.
Problem is, except for a couple of debates where you can hear from the candidates directly, much of what we see is the political attack ads from supe -PACs, the Super Political Action Committees. These independent groups can raise and spend unlimited amounts on candidates or issues whose goals only further their agenda. It’s not helping voters understand where the candidates really stand on the issues, and who will best represent us in the nation’s greatest deliberative body - the U.S. Senate.
I take a back seat to no one when it comes to defending the first amendment’s free speech protection. But if ever there were a case for truth in advertising, it ought to apply when the electorate needs honesty about the nation’s problems and how candidates propose to address them.
I’m sure the three individuals who want to represent Georgia in Washington are probably decent, honest, principled people. But unless voters have the time or inclination to vet them on their own, much of what you’ll see, hear and read comes from the super PACs who seem more interested in steering voters rather than informing them.
Twisted facts, out of context quotes, and falsehoods are the stock-in-trade for these groups hell-bent on getting their person elected, leaving the truth as a casualty in their wake.
How do the candidates feel about these proliferating super PACs and what they bring to the contest?
Jack Kingston spokesman, Chris Crawford says he hates to see a smear campaign from out of state. “We’ve run a campaign focused on the issues,” he said. Adding that super PACs are a “… fact of life in modern politics.”
As for David Perdue’s media guy, Derrick Dickey, he tells me the super PAC barrage negatively affects every candidate. Dickey said these ads demonstrate the negative impact of outside money as their messages “go unchecked in the false claims they make.”
So, find the remote and fasten the seatbelt in your favorite TV chair because there’s plenty of campaign turbulence ahead.
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