Negative Ads, Local Style

Iowa Republican Party must not think that Iowa State Senator Mark Chelgren has a big enough lead over challenger Steve Siegel. Chelgren has been running mostly positive radio ads, but that has changed. The new Mark Chelgren radio ad running today makes the claim that Siegel filled out a legislative survey, and on the question of where he stands on abortion, Siegel wrote “Kill them all and let God sort them out.”

“Kill them all and let God sort them out.”

That’s Siegel’s position on abortion, according the ad, which is paid for by the Iowa Republican Party and approved by Chelgren.

If Siegel actually wrote that, it just might qualify as the dumbest thing any political candidate has ever written on a political survey. If he didn’t, then Chelgren and the Iowa Republicans are the dirtiest liars between the Mississippi and the Missouri.

Either way, it’s news. It will be interesting to see if any local southeast Iowa newsrooms actually take up this story and call Siegel for a reaction, rather than just reprint the lame press releases by both candidates.  Siegel needs to confirm or deny that he wrote that, and if he did, he needs to explain himself.

If he claims he did not write that, then the Iowa Republicans and Chelgren need to provide proof that he did, or otherwise explain themselves.

One has to wonder why the decision to suddenly go negative. By all accounts, Chelgren, the incumbent, has a sizable advantage. A less controversial Chelgren ad taunts Siegel for going to college at Berkely, “the most liberal college in America.”

That one is typical right-wing knuckle-dragging BS.

But the abortion ad? That’s news

Lewis Black pretty much sums it up.

No game this week, so here's a little history lesson from my buddy Scott, aka The Iowa Nice Guy.