The GOP is Paying for My Opponent’s Smear Ads

[Alan Grayson]

Here’s the latest: the Republican Party is paying for my opponent’s vicious attack ads.

Let me tell you why. By most objective standards, my opponent’s campaign is a failure.

Her name recognition in Central Florida hovers in the same range as William Jackson Brack’s. (Who is William Jackson Brack? Exactly my point.)

She has run up an $80,000 tab with her campaign suppliers, and she has no way to pay them back.

Her positions on the issues are wildly unpopular in Central Florida. Orlando has the lowest wages in the nation: 50th out of the top 50 metropolitan areas. So I want to raise the minimum wage. And she wants to repeal it.

Let me repeat that: My opponent wants to eliminate the minimum wage.

But none of that matters, because the Republican Party has targeted me, so they are spending their gutter money to pay for her gutter ads.

If you are a close political observer, you might have thought that they are not allowed to do that. You might have thought that a political party can spend its money only on so-called “independent expenditures,” not simply ponying up for whatever ad that a candidate wants to run.

They don’t care. They’ve tossed that fig leaf into the wood chipper. They mumble “441(a)(d),” or some other magical incantation like that, and then they just do whatever they want. They’ve known that they’ve got five votes on the U.S. Supreme Court, so they can get away with anything. “Rules, shmules, buddy; Clarence Thomas is in our pocket.”

We have to stop them; we have to stop this. Contribute to our campaign today, and help us fight back.

Is the Republican Party running a positive ad, extolling my opponent’s virtues? No; maybe because they couldn’t identify any, I don’t know. The ad that the Republican Party is paying for is the kind of repugnant, malevolent bushwah that they run on every day of the week ending with the letter “y.” Just another example of what Bill Clinton rightly called “the politics of personal destruction.”

Bambi’s mother said, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything.” The Republican Party says, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, we’ll pay for your ad.”

In 2010, when I lost my first campaign for reelection, the Republican Party spent $1,000,000.00+ to defeat me, and the Democratic Party spent $0.00 to defend me. Zilch. Nadda. Zip. Diddly-squat. A big fat goose egg.

And this time? Not even a hill of beans.

So it’s up to you. Please don’t let the Republican Party dictate the outcome of this election. Don’t let the GOP pick off “the most effective Member of Congress,” while laying off the Democrats who act like personal servants to them.

The election is just eight days away. Now it’s me against the whole GOP. So I need your help — today.

Courage,

Rep. Alan Grayson