China Emerges as a Scapegoat in Campaign Advertisements [View All]

[pampango]

Source: New York Times

With many Americans seized by anxiety about the country’s economic decline, candidates from both political parties have suddenly found a new villain to run against: China. In the past week or so, at least 29 candidates have unveiled advertisements suggesting that their opponents have been too sympathetic to China and, as a result, Americans have suffered. The ads are striking not only in their volume but also in their pointed language.

It is no accident that Democrats, in particular, have been eying China as a line of attack. This spring, national Democrats, including the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, began to encourage candidates to highlight the issue after reviewing internal polling that suggested voters strongly favored eliminating tax breaks for companies that do business in China.

Still, some Republicans clearly see the issue as potent, and they are counterattacking with ads stating that the Obama administration’s stimulus package helped to create $2 billion in wind-turbine technology jobs in China, a claim the Treasury Department and the American Wind Energy Association say is dubious.

Evan B. Tracey, president of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political advertising, said that “China has sort of become a straw-man villain in this election” in a way that elicits comparisons to the sentiments toward Japan in the 1980s over car manufacturing and Mexico in the 1990s over the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/10/us/politics/10outsource.html?_r=1&hp