Bee’s Stealth Campaign Ad

David Safier made some excellent points, which I had clearly overlooked, about the clear intent of the ad cut by The Educational Reform Group and paid for with public funds. It’s content clearly reveals an intent to aid Bee’s Congressional campaign, which makes the denials by the lobbying firm responsible for the ad ring hollow:

"It’s not actually a political ad," said Meghaen Duger, a Phoenix-based
lobbyist who helped create the campaign. "It’s not an advocacy for
support of a candidate. It’s just thanking (Bee)."

Riiight. Don’t try to tell me that Ms. Duger isn’t a good Republican, doing her part to elect Bee. Nor that her specific intent was anything other than supporting the candidacy of Tim Bee.

At least two people involved with making the ad had no illusions about its purpose:

"I don’t know who arranged it, but I know someone must have,
because it was kind of on the agenda," said Richard Connet, president
of the Vail Education Association teachers union and a Republican who
supports Bee for Congress.

"We all knew it was going to be used also for his run against Giffords," Connet said.

Sahuarita parent Kris Ham, who has known Bee since childhood,
said, "My intent is to support the bill and to support Senator Bee."

This is not an issue of pure free speech, as some of my Republican readers might suggest. This is an issue of bought and paid for electioneering advertising on the public’s dime.

Allow me a hypothetical. Suppose that the Arizona National Guard had a lobbying arm. They don’t, but let’s suppose. The purpose of that lobbying arm was to promote the interests and funding of the Guard and its members. That mightn’t be problematic, though some may question the use of public funds for that purpose.

But now let us suppose that due to Gabby Giffords’ strong support for the benefits and working conditions of the Guards in Congress, they wanted to thank her for a bill she had sponsored or supported. So they hire a lobbying firm, run by a Democrat, to create an ad showing Guardsmen thanking Gabby for her great work. And the ad claimed that Gabby was working hard to protect the security of southern Arizona by supporting the Guard. There was no attribution about who paid for or sponsored the ad, and it ran on local cable television.

Just how long, exactly, do you think it would take Bee’s campaign and Arizona Republican Party leaders like Bruce Ash and Randy Pullen to be screaming foul and filing complaints with the FEC, the Governess, and anyone else who might listen? Can you tell me with a straight face that this wouldn’t be a scandal?

Now, I chose the Guard quite purposefully for this example. Because the military is generally considered a Republican-inclined constituency, one could safely infer that there is a definite political stratagem afoot to undercut Republican support among their base. Well, I seem to recall many Republicans in recent years attacking the educational community, teacher’s unions in particular, with being overtly and predominantly Democratic. Kinda makes me wonder if Bee’s campaign had in mind an effort to undermine Democratic support in a traditional Democratic base constituency by bringing forth this message of "Thanks" from the educational community?

This also connects back to Arizona’s resign-run-laws and Tim Bee’s Schrödinger’s candidate act to stay in office during his run for Congress. Could Tim have "earned" this spontaneous encomium from the educators if he were not in the state Senate to sponsor such legislation? Of course not. Which is why his skirting of Arizona’s Constitution and laws in order to remain in office was not, and is not a small matter. It is a central strategy of his campaign, and he was willing and able to bend the law in order to preserve that strategic asset.

When you add it all up, this reminds me of the Bush Administration’s questionable maneuvers to manipulate public opinion by creating the news through unlabeled video news releases and secret payments to media figures. Surely, Bee’s campaign hasn’t actually purchased favorable media coverage with favorable legislation—I doubt if anyone will ever find such a smoking gun of a quid pro quo, in any case—but it certainly makes you wonder whether electioneering like this should be an acceptable use of public funds, whether or not it conforms to current law (which I question…).