I've been dubious about the Arizona Republic and their editorial page for most of my adult life. Recently, they announced that they won't be making any endorsements in state legislative races. This is after years of their columnists making noise about "De-Kooking the Legislature." I realize that editorial endorsements, per se, have very little impact on elections, but making them says that your paper is willing to engage in the political discussion. It's hard to take you seriously as a part of civic life otherwise.
That leaves the Republic to writing Tommy Shanks style editorials about how great it would be to return to those non-existent days of yesteryear when every debate was Abraham Lincoln-Stephen Douglas and every election was fought cleanly on issues. Fought only, of course, on issues that are of interest to Republic editorial writers and their buddies they see at Chamber of Commerce luncheons. We don't want to offend.
Case in point: Americans for Responsible Solutions, the group founded by Gabrielle Giffords and run by former members of her staff, is running a hard hitting ad against Martha McSally noting that her stance against certain gun control would include allowing violent stalkers to buy firearms.
Yep, pulls at the heart strings. The Republic's response is to clutch their pearls against their collective breast and decry the unfairness of it all:
The anti-McSally ad is more than hardball politics. It is base and vile. It exploits a family's tragedy to score cheap political points.
Not said in the editorial is that the add is truthful about McSally's position on gun control,
something verified by their own reporting.
McSally's supporters have also been saying that she herself is a stalking victim and so it's in bad taste. This hasn't stopped her campaign from doing a little stalking themselves. But I digress.
I don't see that the ad is any worse than other ads run in local races. It certainly pales in comparison to the rhetoric from the pro-gun crowd. No one is comparing anyone to Hitler, after all.
The writers at Salon, by the way, welcome the new, harder hitting stance from gun control supporters.
The tut-tutting from the Republic about keeping our politics above board would be easier to take if they didn't excuse Joe Arpaio's thuggery for so long. Their problem isn't with a hard hitting ad, it's with the target. McSally is a mainstream conservative, well liked by the business community. She's one of their pals.
PS - In the post above, I used the Lincoln-Douglas debates as an example of civil, reasoned discussion. I know they were filled with insults and overblown claims. I brought it up as one of those things people always bring up when they idealize politics of the past. It just goes to show how little reading they've done.