U.S. Rep. Brad Ellworth (D-IN) has raised more than $4 million in his previous runs for Congress since 2006 and the majority of those funds have come from out-of-state special interest groups. Yet his first TV spot in this year's senate race gives you the impression he's just some small town sheriff and an outsider who has never served a day in Congress. "One thing that 25 years as sheriff teaches you is zero tolerance for bull," Ellsworth says in his first 30-second spot dressed in blue jeans speaking from what appears to be an abandoned factory as a backdrop. "The special interests and lobbyists already have enough senators on their side," he concludes. Sorry, Brad. That dog won't hunt. In case you're wondering, his biggest campaign contributor in the current campaign cycle is Barnes & Thornburg, which has a DC office that lobbies Congress. And for the record, Ellsworth never served as a sheriff for 25 years as he suggests in his ad. The Indiana Constitution limits sheriffs to two consecutive terms. He served as Vanderburgh Co. Sheriff for two terms, or eight years. Is it possible for a candidate to run an ad that resembles anything close to the truth any more?
6 comments:
"Twenty-five years as a sheriff," then Ellsworth continues, "and 123 years as a brain surgeon," "and 18 years as a nuclear physicist."
"Oh, and 16 years as a freakin' liar." /s off
Ellsworth was a highly visible, responsible law-enforcing member of the Vanderburgh County Sheriff's Department for many years before he held the elective office of Sheriff. If the ad isn't clear enough, fine, it should be clarified, but "freakin' liar" isn't true either, and nothing is added to the credibility of election debates/process by using that language.
Dan Coats is advertently hoping/trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the electorate concerning his non-tenure as a Hoosier and his $$$millions+ income as a lobbyist, but he probably won't be called a "freakin' liar".
Not a pleasant choice. I despise lobbyists, including Dan Coats, as means of circumventing the collective will of the people. But, when facing a choice between his Indiana constituency and his President on health "reform", Representative Ellsworth rolled over after a trip on Air Force One.
If that's not enough for you, if you'd like him to sit-up and beg for our President, then I'd say he's your vote.
I'd rather have a lobbyist.
If I were the Republicans, I would leave the Sheriff Ellsworth stuff alone. He spent over 20 years in heroic service to Vanderburgh County. He never left Indiana to become a high-powered lobbyist and then moved back when the guy he feared retired from the Senate.
Unless you want to shine more of a light on Coats' career as a lobbyist and as an insider out of touch because he's been out of the state, I would just argue with Ellsworth on the issues.
Jon, My primary point is that Ellsworth wants it both ways. He takes all of the special interest money from the lobbyists and then complains about them. If he truly felt that way, he could have turned them down like his predecessor, John Hostettler, who struggled to raise adequate funds to run for re-election because he wouldn't take the special interest money. The truth is that Brad Ellsworth wouldn't have been elected in all likelihood had he not been such a large recipient of special interest money.
Brad Ellsworth won because of being a popular public servant of long standing and had no baggage of the John Hostettler kind. The "Bloody Ninth" had a reputation for goofy elections ( I lived there a long time so I know) but people finally got very tired of Hostettler's strange beliefs and actions and dumped him when an attractive and reasonable person with a public-service record, Brad Ellsworth, stepped forward.
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