GOP: Mailer Attacking Our Guy As Confederate-Friendly Is False -- Kind Of
The NRCC is crying foul over a Democratic mailer against Southaven Mayor Greg Davis, the Republican nominee in today's nationally-watched Mississippi special election, which accuse Davis of having offered up his suburban Memphis town as a new home for a statue of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, the founder of the Ku Klux Klan:
(Click images to enlarge.)
Davis spokesman Ted Prill characterized the mailer as "11-hour gutter politics," and said the allegation isn't true. Prill explained that when Memphis was getting rid of Confederate statutes under pressure from civil rights groups three years ago, Davis had simply offered to accept the statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis -- but not the one of Forrest.
"False accusations and race-baiting politics have no place in our public discourse, and if Democrats want to continue to pursue this line of attack, then it will backfire in November," said NRCC spokesman Ken Spain.
Heck, this will motivate voters who are for Davis, and voters who are against Davis. Net wash, if you ask me.
May 13, 2008 3:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
If this were a TV spot, it would probably reach as many pro- as anti-KKK, but it is a direct-mail piece to a targeted audience.
May 13, 2008 4:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
doh! Good point.
May 13, 2008 4:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd imagine the people that would be pissed off about a statue of Forrest would be just as angered by a Jefferson Davis statue.
May 13, 2008 3:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
See, now, that's not the point. If they'd slammed him for inserting himself into the controversy and volunteering a home for Jeff Davis - working together with the United Sons of the Confederacy to do so - that would've been fine. But they accused him of wanting Nathan Bedford Forrest, and he didn't. The article they cite quotes him wanting Davis, not Forrest. Three other articles published at the time (AP, Commercial Appeal, and DeSoto Times) bear that out.
Whatever you think of Jeff Davis, he possesses a very different political currency than "the founder of the KKK." The DCCC is way, way out of line here, and frankly, ought to be ashamed of itself. Greg Davis can be attacked on the merits; there's no need to make stuff up.
May 13, 2008 3:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, it's certainly dishonest on the part of the DCCC. I just think that the impact on voters would be the same whether it was Davis or Forrest, which is why the deception baffles me.
May 13, 2008 3:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Did you notice the name FlyOnTneWall everyone?
That's just another GOP troll pretending to be someone they are not and something that they aren't. Instead they are very much a clone like the rest of the fools in their party, not honest, not open and not objective.
May 13, 2008 3:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hmm, this guy has been posting for quite a while under the FlyOnTneWall tag.
He doesn't seem to be a troll, but rather, trying to misuse FlyOnTheWall as a way to legitimize his posts?
May 13, 2008 4:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, they are most certainly not out of line. I live in Memphis and remember very well Davis' grandstanding on this. Check out the 8/5/05 NYT article on the statue controversy. Here's the last paragraph of the article, which is by John Branston:
There have been other proposals for how the handle the Forrest issue, like giving generic names to the parks and adding monuments of black heroes. Last week, the mayor of Southaven, Miss., a fast-growing city where many white Memphians have moved over the years, said he would be happy to have the Forrest equestrian statue in Southaven.
May 13, 2008 3:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jefferson Davis was a traitor against the United States of America and a proponent of the enslavement of black Americans. That Greg Davis accepted a statue honoring the man on his property is a stain on a his character and in my opinion makes him unfit for higher office.
May 13, 2008 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Keep in mind though that in the south Jefferson Davis is not a bad word. Route 1 which runs from the tip of Florida all the way through Maine is named Jefferson David Highway in the section that passes through much of northern Virginia.
I'm not disagreeing with your opionions about Davis, just that his name doesn't stir anger the way that Forrest's certainly should.
May 13, 2008 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOLOL! The irony of this is just rich. These are the same GOP hacks that are trying to paint Childers as *gasp* a liberal (and subliminally a ne-gro lover). That they would cry foul tying them to the KKK or honoring the shameful slavery past of the south is well, as backwards as the rest of the red-necks in that state.
I can only hope that this kind of stuff backfires on the republicans so badly this year that it puts an end to this kind of campaigning once and for all.
However, seeing these racist jerks burned by the fire of their own cross gives me a certain amount of pleasure. I just hope the good people of MS go out and vote for Childers in droves.
May 13, 2008 3:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Funny that the NRCC says that "this line of attack . . . will backfire in November" when in fact the election is taking place today.
May 13, 2008 3:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
"But it will make it so Davis can win all 370 delegates in California since it is winner takes all there... as far as I know" - Mark Penn
May 13, 2008 5:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
The special election is today. Both candidates will be on the ballot for the same seat in November.
May 13, 2008 5:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Without enough information at hand to judge the accuracy of the underlying DCCC charges (Forrest vs. Davis), I don't know if this was a "fair" attack or not.
However, the politics of this are clear -- this was definately a targeted effort by Childress to up turnout among the 27% of the district population that is African-American -- the use of black images on the flyer and the nature of the message tell us that this wasn't being distributed across the district, but rather targeted in heavily African-American areas.
Similarly, the Greg Davis campaign is attempting to play similar "dog whistle" politics with this by making sure that the 3/4ers of the district that is white hears about this and knows that as mayor he approved of Confederate statues - hoping that it will scare off some swing white voters who might otherwise vote Democratic --- just a variation on the ads linking the Democratic candidate to Obama.
Racial politics in Mississippi -- nothing new there. But if it doesn't end up working for the Republicans, it will prove that maybe we really are changing as a nation.
May 13, 2008 3:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
See the TPM follow-up. He offered to take both statues.
May 13, 2008 5:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, it's only Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America! He was a patriot... of another country.
May 13, 2008 3:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
How do we know that the mailers are even "kind of false"? Because the NRCC and Davis Campaign said so? The mailers reference a newspaper site, has it been checked for accuracy?
Given the Southern GOP's stand on issues like the Confederate Flag, it is not that far a reach for me, as a native and current Southerner, to believe that someone in the party may wax nostalgic to the "good ole days" when people knew their "place" in society.
May 13, 2008 3:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gbattle3, you are right. The charges are NOT false at all. They are true. The Republicans are totally full of it on this. Check out the 8/5/05 NYT article on the Forrest statue controversy. Here's the last paragraph of the article, which is by John Branston:
There have been other proposals for how the handle the Forrest issue, like giving generic names to the parks and adding monuments of black heroes. Last week, the mayor of Southaven, Miss., a fast-growing city where many white Memphians have moved over the years, said he would be happy to have the Forrest equestrian statue in Southaven.
May 13, 2008 4:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Battle of the Lost cause"... Amazing you can be a patriot of the united states --- and still celebrate the confederacy. 8-| People need to start calling that what it is, supporting a group of failed secessionists.
May 13, 2008 3:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
On the other hand the Democrats used to be the party of choice for the KKK, so this is more than ironic.
May 13, 2008 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
"False accusations and race-baiting politics have no place in our public discourse, and if Democrats want to continue to pursue this line of attack, then it will backfire in November," said NRCC spokesman Ken Spain.
Then why do Republicans use these same tactics so much?
Republicans: Can't take what they dish out.
Democrats will win in November.
May 13, 2008 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, didn't George Allen name one of his sons after Forrest?
May 13, 2008 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
The retarded one?
May 13, 2008 5:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
To be honest, I do not like last minute gotcha politics no matter which side does it. If you have a valid point to make, do it early enough so that the target of your accusation can respond.
I have one exception to this rule. If your opponent has consistently shown himself/herself to be an unethical politician then I have no problem evening the playing field.
I'm not sure which category this attack falls under.
May 13, 2008 4:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
I live in Memphis and have seen the adds flying back and forth.
1. Both sides have been running fairly negative campaigns.
2. Greg Davis has made some especialy foolish ones. He ran an attack add against Childers based on a nursing home that he owns saying it was substandard but it turns out that both his mother and mother-in-law live there.
3. I was under the impression at the time that it was the statue of Forrest that he was offering to take.
I argued that Memphis needs to keep the statue to show that we have the history of being the kind of city that in response to the civil rights movement raised a statue to the founder of the KKK. So far it still stands in Forest Park surrounded by the medical school UT Memphis in our beautifull downtown on Union Ave.
May 13, 2008 5:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I guess the real question is whether the emotional impact of the statue is simply as a record of the past or a symbol of the present. To remind people of the atrocities of history is one thing. To validate current thinking is all together different.
I suspect that it is a bit of both and depends greatly on your point of view.
May 13, 2008 6:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
If Davis (the current GOPer) was advocating that the statue be displayed with the words "never again" and an international "no" symbol welded onto the faces of the statues, I could get behind that. But that isn't the case here and we all know that.
May 13, 2008 6:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
I do not know enough of the situation to say one way or another, but my gut tells me that you are right. I could get behind the statue only if it was painfully clear that it was not in admiration but denunciation of the man.
May 13, 2008 7:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I did not advocate moving the statue to Southaven. I advocated for its staying, as it has, where it was errected.
May 13, 2008 11:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
For what it's worth... It's an aesthetically pleasing statue and fits well in that tree-lined park. But given the historical impications, I don't know that its artistic merit should be a major factor in discussions of its appropriateness.
May 13, 2008 6:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
It would probably gain a lot more art value if someone vandalized it. I think a blowtorch would be the best way to make an artistic statement here.
May 13, 2008 9:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Meh, just add some context to the statue to help defuse/diffuse some of the racial animus. Like a statue of an angry Mr. T. right behind it.
I pity da foo!
May 13, 2008 7:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
On the other hand the Democrats used to be the party of choice for the KKK, so this is more than ironic.
I'm getting pretty sick of these insinuations and racist/republican glee that Black voters now vote for a racist party, the Democrats. Those constituencies have done a 180 in those past 100- 120 years. The groups that voted Democrat now vote Reps, and vice versa.
On the other hand ... I can also laugh about this because it shows that the champions of historical re-enactments knows jack sh|t about history ;)
May 13, 2008 11:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's good to catch politicians redhanded and waffling and crawfishing away from the truth.
However, the statement in the story about Gen. Forrest being the first leadr of the kkk is absolutely false. This is an old urban legend that has been going around since the late 1860s. An 1871 Congressional investigation cleared him of these charges. For more info see http://www.flatfenders.com/scv/forrest%20defense.htm
May 17, 2008 1:22 PM | Reply | Permalink