RICHMOND, Aug. 7 -- Democratic Senate candidate James Webb will launch his first television ad Monday, a 30-second tribute by former President Ronald Reagan, for whom Webb once served as Navy secretary.
...
"It's an unusual ad for a Democrat, but in this state it'll sell," said state Sen. Richard L. Saslaw (D-Fairfax), the chamber's minority leader.
Showing that you still have to be a republican to win in Virginia, or at least pretend to be one.
When asked about objections to using Reagan's name, the Webb campaign is reported to have responded:
Todd responded: "Let's let Reagan speak for Reagan."
Well, now Reagan (Nancy) has weighed in to speak for Reagan (her husband). From WDBJ, Channel 7 Virginia:
RICHMOND, Va. Nancy Reagan has ordered Democratic Senate candidate Jim Webb -- a former Reagan White House military aide -- NOT to use video of her husband praising Webb in an upcoming campaign ad.
A three-paragraph letter from the former first lady's office says the use of footage of President Reagan is ... quote ... "neither authorized nor appropriate."
I don't know about "authorization", I suppose someone might control the footage and if it isn't public there might be a copyright issue. In the story, Edwin Meese alludes to this:
Former Attorney General Edwin Meese was a Reagan adviser. He calls the ad ... quote ... "improper, unethical and very possibly illegal."
I don't know about illegal. But certainly using a dead man who can't speak for himself to pretend you are getting an endorsement from him for something that happened years ago when you had different beliefs is disingenous and misleading, if not downright false. And obviously they did so without regard to how his surviving widow would feel about the misuse of her husband's good name.
But the funniest line in the story was this:
Webb was NOT immediately available for comment
No surprise there, has he been available to comment on ANYTHING his campaign has been up to the past couple of weeks?
3 comments:
Charles, Webb is damned either way on this one. If he runs the ad, every Reagan supporter will blast him. If he cancels the ad, goodbye much needed money.
Jim Webb, like many cross over voters, loved and respected the great Ronald Reagan. (And was appointed by Reagan to be his Secretary of the Navy)
Reagan, who started out as a Democrat and ended up as the greatest Republican of them all, once said he didn't leave the Democratic Party...the Democratic Party left him. Now that the most extreme elements of the right wing have hijacked the Republican Party, we cross over voters say "We didn't leave the Republican Party, the Republican Party left us."
And what, you're going back to a party where Leiberman, with a 12% conservative rating, is considered too conservative?
IN other words, you think the democrat party hasn't moved so far to the left that the socialists are wondering how they got left behind?
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