NY-20: Antiwar Mom Whose Son Died In Iraq Cuts Ad For...GOPer Sweeney!
GOP Rep John Sweeney -- who's facing a challenge from antiwar Dem Kirsten Gillibrand -- has just released one of the strangest political ads we've ever seen. It stars a mother whose son died serving in Iraq who's nonetheless endorsing the pro-war Sweeney. She says she told Sweeney that her dead 21-year-old son had been traveling in Iraq in a vehicle without proper protection. Sweeney said he would "help." The mom concludes: "I don't believe in the war. But I do believe in our soldiers. And John Sweeney. For the sake of every mother who's child still seves." It's an intriguing gamble. The Sweeney campaign seems to be willing to remind voters about the war he voted for and supports -- in hopes of persuading voters not to hold him accountable for it.
Sweeney's running against Kirsten Gillibrand, I believe. Diane Farrell is in Connecticut.
September 18, 2006 11:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
The next question I would have for his opponent's campaign is that he "said" he would help. What did he -do-?
September 18, 2006 11:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wow. Will there be a Dem response ad showing how Sweeney has "helped" not get adequate protection for those who are serving there?
September 18, 2006 11:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
We recently moved into NY-20 and sadly it's a tailor made district for Republicans -- supposedly 100,000 more registered Reps than Dems. On top of that MANY people up here have satellite TV and opt to get local stations from NYC rather than Albany, so these commercials (for good or ill) will not even be seen by lots of potential voters (including us). No easy solutions up here.
September 18, 2006 11:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Strange ad. Could be effective, if the bona fides of this woman check out. Is she really anti-war, and how has she demonstrated this position in the past? Is she a long time republican who donated to bush or sweeney? Did she support the war at its inception? What did Sweeney tell her he would actually do, and how has he followed through?
Tough questions to ask a grieving mother, but I would expect the same if I cut an ad for a congressional candidate.
September 18, 2006 12:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Unless Sweeney's a complete idiot, he'll have chapter and verse ready to go on what he did to "keep that promise". This reads like a set up to a punchline.
I'd bypass the script and point out that Republicans like Sweeney can't seem to act until problems, like inadequate armor, make front page headlines. Democrats, many of whom came out against the badly planned war, were listening to the letters coming home from soldiers and fighting to solve the problems before it became fashionable.
~Seattlebird
September 18, 2006 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not the first time the GOP has tried to make the war about "support our troops."
http://www.haberarts.com/
September 18, 2006 12:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
An even harder question: did she get paid?
September 18, 2006 12:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you believe that Bush is inept and doing bad things to this country, it does not help to keep pointing this out. All the "gotchas", all the irony and sarcasm, has been lost on those who can make a difference. You write well and your insight is incisive, but the real change will come when Democrats are voted in so they can block Mr. Bush & Co. If that doesn't happen, we will be consigned to more years of killing in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and maybe even North Korea. Too many Democrats and good writers are playing the "victim" game; they have been playing the victim, as in "Poor me!", for much too long. First, they let the Republicans mount an attack on them and their positions. Then they act surprised at the "bad" Republicans for doing this. Then they protest, calling what the Republicans do "dispicable" or "dirty tricks" or "untrue". All of which only makes the Democrats look even more like victims. And so they dig their own fate. I also sense that, when they do this and ring their hands, they are hoping the Republicans will receive their comeuppance from some mysterious force, and that they will self-destruct of their own accord. Act like a victim, end up like one.
Please understand that cool, clear factual materials or relentless acidic humor won't help unless they are promulgated in a pro-active way by the Democrats. If they can't convince people to vote for their own interests, we're all in a very deep morass. So do some columns that envision a Democratic majority and what will happen top Bush, how he will show his true colors, how there might emerge some rational plans. (Sure the Democrats will end up being corrupt, sure they will snarl things up, but right now they're the preferred alternative.) And all you readers, vote Democratic, vote out the Republicans, expose the truth, and persuade your friends that the Republicans will lie to remain in power.
September 18, 2006 12:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think it is accurate to call her anti war. In this post about the ad she says:
And in this article she accuses Kirsten Gillibrand of "war profiteering" because Gillibrand's husband owns stock in a defense company (BAE systems). However, she doesn't mention that BAE's PAC gave $2,000 to John Sweeney.
So she apparently wants to "stay the course" and is resorting to hypocritcally attacking Gillibrand for war profiteering. Can you be for "staying the course" and be anti-war? I say no.
September 18, 2006 1:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
How did Sweeney vote on body armor? Maybe the "Vote Vet" ad could be used against him. I hope the campaign should know.
radical centerist
September 18, 2006 1:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is precisely because of this unfathomable dual personality syndrome that I continue to be less than sanguine about Dem chances in November.
The contradictions in this woman's thinking are so profound as to defy analysis. But, then, aren't the vast majority of Americans in this same mental swamp?
To my mind, the Dems missed a truly golden opportunity to clean up Washington on the heels of the "K Street Scandal". Solution: NO contacts by elected representatives or their staffs with lobbyists; a "new broom sweeps clean" approach. But that, after all, would require most of them to take a good, hot bath, wouldn't it?
Do I sense a lack of commitment to good government here?
September 18, 2006 1:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Talk about cognitive dissonance....
Sweeney is the idiot who posed for a camera while drunk at a Union(?) College frat party a few months back and then made up some excuse about having come from a funeral.
September 18, 2006 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Have probably said around here before that Sweeney's a lock. The district's built and bargained-for GOP, though by an old skool calculation that if you cut out anything urban, the consumerist and wanna-be consumerist suburbs (xenophobic, debt-laden, tax-cut suburbs) and farmers will take it from there.
It's changing, no doubt. But Sweeney's still a lock this go-round, maybe his last at this level. The suburbs are huge here by now, and are less reliably Republican. The farmers are getting younger, and focus better on their key needs of opportunity, transport infrastructure, sane market incentives, and better ties with boutique urban markets. Trend-wise they're less GOP-reliable, too.
In terms of who'll turn-out in the 20th, it ain't a satellite TV backwater by any means. Everybody's got cable; satellite folks (like my family in the Washington County sticks) switch easily to rabbit ears for local news. There's no echo chamber any more, when you take the district as a whole.
Yet Sweeney's a lock cuz he's not hated, doesn't inspire outrage. Gillibrand knows she's just building brand. 2008 could be interesting, since Sweeney will likely move on for health reasons.
In terms of Dem-energy and funding, probably better to wait for the coming vacuum, then fill it.
LQ
September 18, 2006 10:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
But don't you think, DIA, that this tells us there's no real fight here in 2006? It'd be fun if there were, but when Sweeney floats perfunctory, inexpensive nonsense juuuust to keep his visibility up, I dunno.
Means Sweeney's peeps are either dumb or sensible GOP soldiers -- and they ain't dumb, Macaca (sorry). DNC's not shoveling money into the 20th either. Don't think there's anything to see here, folks. Yet.
LQ
September 18, 2006 10:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Grieving mother votes the Republican line. Chicken votes for Col. Sanders.
September 19, 2006 2:18 PM | Reply | Permalink