TN-SEN: Corker Pushes Back On "Jungle Drums" Ad
Okay, so we have a bit more for you on that "jungle drums" radio ad by GOP candidate Bob Corker we reported on below: The Corker campaign is trying to knock down the charges that the ads are "racist," as a radio producer in Tennessee told us yesterday. The suggestion that the ad is racially coded had also come up on at least one Tennessee talk show. But now the Associated Press reports:
The Corker campaign said it was preposterous to suggest the radio spot had a coded racial message. The same music, with drums, appears in a Corker TV commercial that doesn't mention Ford.
But does it? More after the jump.
We checked in with the Corker campaign to ask which ad not mentioning Ford had the "same music, with drums." The campaign sent us to this TV ad.
Give it a listen. While it's true that the same music is playing in the ad, and it's true that there is some sort of drumming audible, it's still dramatically different from the radio ad, which pumps up the very loud rumble of drums every single time Ford's name is mentioned. They're just not comparable. The AP's contention that the same music "with drums" exists in the TV ad borders on meaningless. This doesn't necessarily prove the Corker campaign deliberately included the drums in the radio ad as racial coding, of course. It just means the drums in the radio ad aren't anything like the other spot.
What's more, we asked Corker communications director Todd Womack twice if the campaign's position was that the drums were comparable in the two spots. He declined to answer both times, just reiterating the claim that the charge is "ridiculous."
Meanwhile, you'd think that Bill Lockhart, the program director for WGOW radio in Tennessee who spoke to us yesterday, would have heard or seen all of Corker's ads. Nonetheless, the radio one did leap out at him in a very big way. Just to recap, here's what he told us yesterday:
"They're freaking jungle-drums. It's racist -- it tries to conjure up deep, dark African moods. Yeah, it's overtly racial."
So that's where we are. If you feel like it, give that other ad a listen, and let us know what you think.
Look at this statement from the Corker campaign and some of the other brazen falshoods that have come out of other Republican campaigns this week and consider:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
October 26, 2006 3:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
If Corker is elected, there should be real live drumming to accompany his every public appearance. The people who win with these campaigns shouldn't be able to live them down, ever.
October 26, 2006 4:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
ok so change the music and have the soaring music be when Ford's name is mentioned and have the jungle drums sound when you mention Corker and see what they say.
October 26, 2006 4:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
The second ad link doesn't work for me.
Jan Knaus
October 26, 2006 4:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ad link doesn't work for me either.
October 26, 2006 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
link fixed -- sorry!
October 26, 2006 6:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jungle drums are an obvious suggestion of Africa. They strategically remind rascist voters that the candidate is African-American. Calling attention to his physical attractiveness suggests white rascist fears of miscegenation--which was a crime in southern states.
For corker to pretend that these ads are not designed to register subliminally, a rascist subtext, is beyond credibility. Like every other Republican, Corker believes that lying to the public, and exploiting racism, is the most sure path to power--and it's alwalys served them well in the past.
October 26, 2006 7:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
By the way - the quote is from Joseph Goebbels
October 26, 2006 7:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's a new campaign issue now in the Corker/Ford race.
Corker plans to loan more of his personal fortune to his campaign, but wants to wait until the last minute so as not to trigger the "millionaire clause" in campaign financing law in time to allow Ford to take advantage of higher contribution limits to Ford's campaign.
In reporting this strategy, newspapers are reprinting Corker's full funding appeal, which slimes Ford with "Hollywood" associations in addition to emphasizing the urgency of the appeal to Republican funders. Corker should have to declare all the free campaign help he's gotten from the media, including repeated free airing of the most egregious campaign ads I've seen.
The Knoxville News Sentinel, quoting from Corker campaign appeal:
"Bob plans on investing in his campaign, but wants to delay that as long as possible so as to not trigger the 'millionaire's clause,' " Haslam said.
"The way the millionaire's clause works is that if one of Harold Ford Jr.'s donors - let's say Barbra Streisand - has given $4,200, the clause allows Ford Jr. to go back to the Barbra Streisands of the world and double their contributions to $8,400," Haslam wrote.
"This will cause a tremendous amount of funds to pour in from Ford's liberal friends in Hollywood and New York," he wrote. "Let's all work hard and dig deep."
Media also repeat the bogus claims of the "Shaky" ad, and note that Ford denies them - Why can't reporters just do the small amount of investigative work required to report that the claims are untrue?!
October 26, 2006 7:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
This borders on a conspiracy theory, meaning that Corker people knew that they were going to get called on the radio ad. But give it a very careful ear. There are two tracks on the TV ad, including the ethereal vocal one and the drums. The two tracks run together. On the radio ad, the ethereal track is the same during the Corker bits, but vanishes during the Ford bits. The drum track alternates with the ethereal one.
Now, it seems any kid who understands the basics of musical recording with an electronic keyboard and a computer can synthesize two tracks running in parallel (including pseudo-voices), then fade them in and out at will on another stretch. What gives me this idea is that there appear to be no drums in the radio ads on the Corker bits. Had it literally been the same music, the drums would have been audible on that track as well.
I've just listened to the two ads two more times and I simply do not hear the precussion on the radio ad in Corker bits. The easy way to accomplish this is by simply eliminating the second track when mixing. Switching two tracks is trivial in electronic recording. But, please, have someone with a more musical ear listen to this. My audio quality and my ears are simply not good enough to be certain.
While you are at it, check if any of Corker's campaign managers overlap the last campaign of David H. Locke--the Massachusetts State Senator from Wellesley who lost to Cheryl Jacques in 1992. During that campaign, Locke sent a flier to the district, which consisted mostly of Wellesley, Needham and Dover.
The flier was essentially a two-column table. It compared various characteristics of the two candidates, such as "David Locke lives in his home in Wellesley. Jacques lives with her parents in Needham. Locke got his law degree from Harvard. Jacques got her degree from Suffolk University.
The implication of the flier was basically that either Jacques is a bum or she's gay or both and how dares she challenge the blue-blood Locke. Locke was soundly beaten. But the layout, the tone and the sentence structure (not that it's that uncommon) of the Locke flier is remarkably similar to Corker's radio ad.
Locke, by the way, had another distinction. Long before Rick Santorum had his man-on-dog moment in the Senate, Locke distinguished himself by trying to attach a bestiality clause to the civil rights bill in Massachusetts Senate that was going to include protections against discrimination over sexual preferences. The amendment was killed, the bill passed and Locke was soon forgotten.
October 26, 2006 9:05 PM | Reply | Permalink