The Conway Ad

Not that I'm one of these prominent bloggers whose opinion people care about, or anything, but if you're reading this you might care about my opinion, so here it is, specifically on the topic of Jack Conway's newest ad attacking Rand Paul. Here's the ad. Jonathan Chait called it the "ugliest, most illiberal political ad of the year." There's been some back-and-forth among the online liberal blogosphere about whether or not the ad is okay, with plenty of people I basically like on both sides. So here's my take.

I'm not a huge fan of this ad. For starters, I think it might be unwise, which I'll get to later. But also, in case you haven't noticed, I'm kind of an atheist myself. And while it's true that if I were to run for office, I would be perfectly open about being an atheist, and would go out there and make the case that being an atheist wasn't a problem for an officeholder, I also recognize that, except in urban districts in Massachusetts or California, I would lose. And I hate that fact about this country. Really, really hate it. And of course, I'm not a huge fan of the way Republicans have attacked various Democrats, notably Obama, on religious grounds. And of course I believe strongly in the bit in the Constitution about how no religious tests for office shall exist (though I likewise recognize that the voters in a constituency can add any requirement they want for their representatives, simply by not voting for them).

At the same time, I think there's a valid defense of the ad. I don't mean the "everyone's doing it" defense, which I don't think is a valid defense. I don't even really mean the "Rand Paul's responding ad is just as bad" defense, though this is true and I think by rights ought to minimize the damage to Conway's campaign. I do think there's always a bit of a consequentialist argument to be made in favor of nasty politicking; i.e., "If I don't run this nasty ad, a Republican will be elected, and maybe he'll be the marginal Senator voting against {insert important policy here}." I can see that argument, though I think it's a really distasteful one to resort to and it would be nice to claim a bit of moral high ground. I have a different defense in mind, though.

Fundamentally, my defense is one of hypocrisy. Not my hypocrisy, that is, or Conway's, but Rand Paul's. It's similar to the argument that for a liberal investigative journalism website to poke around into the sexuality of a Republican Senate candidate (rawstory.com, Charlie Crist) is okay because and only because Crist endorsed anti-gay policies. I think that's basically true, in much the same way that a piece of evidence that is excluded at trial can be introduced later if the defendant says something in court that explicitly contradicts that evidence. And the hypocrisy in this case is not just that Rand Paul currently calls himself a Christian, in all likelihood as a political ploy. Paul had explicitly attacked Conway at a certain state fair for using the word "hell." Now, to me, trying to gin up opposition to a candidate on the grounds of their having blasphemed is a pretty strong claim to religious moral high ground, and it's perfectly reasonable to introduce rebuttal evidence, as it were, that Rand Paul's delicate religious sensibilities might not be as genuine as he'd like us to believe.

Furthermore, there's a difference between Conway's attack and the Republican "OBAMA'S A MUSLIM!!!!1!" attack. That difference is truth. None of the factual allegations Conway makes are incorrect, and quite honestly, it seems pretty clear that Rand Paul was not a devout Christian while he was in college. And as he's kind of an Ayn Rand devotee, and Ms. Rand was rather anti-religious herself, there's a pretty high likelihood that Mr. Paul is not a Christian currently, either. Now, there are plenty of Christians who say they found Jesus as an adult (including Obama), but to the best of my knowledge Rand Paul has never made this claim. (If I'm wrong, this weakens my argument, and I would then probably argue for taking the ad down.) Obama, on the other hand, admits that during the time when he went to school in Indonesia he was not a Christian, but was in fact an atheist, and says that he converted to Christianity as an adult in Chicago. For what it's worth, I'm skeptical myself, and suspect him of still being a closet atheist. But there is essentially no reason to think Obama is now or has ever been a Muslim, except that his father is from Kenya and he spent his childhood in Indonesia. I would maintain that the amount of evidence that Rand Paul is not a Christian, and is therefore both lying about his religion now and making a specific point of exploiting that fake religion for political gain, is much stronger than the evidence that Obama is lying about his religion right now.

Then there's the fact that, religion aside, the thing with kidnapping a woman in college and making her take bong hits for Aqua Buddha is just plain sketchy, and/or criminal. True, the ad doesn't focus on that aspect of the affair, but I think it's relevant.

Now, there are two criticisms of the ad that I'm pretty sure I just plain agree with. First of all, the ad does say that Rand Paul was part of a secret society, and kind of makes it sound like some sort of anti-Christian conspiracy group, but it doesn't mention that this took place in college. That's an upper-mid-level political sketchiness violation, I'd say; genuine, but not the most "ugly and illiberal" ad of the cycle. (Also, while I do agree that it's regrettable that everything a candidate has ever said is now fodder for political attack ads, this is one area where the "everyone's doing it" defense or the "really, it'd be nice to win this race" defense is sufficient to cover the charge.)

The other problem I have with the ad is that I expect it to backfire. Yes, Paul's response ad was just as bad, since rather than refuting the idea that Kentucky voters shouldn't vote for an atheist/Aqua Buddhist, it denied the factual charges. Those factual charges are, I'm pretty sure, true, so Rand Paul responded to this ad by lying. And he also, by not saying "Hey, are you saying only Christians should be elected in this country?" tacitly endorsed the idea that only Christians should be elected in this country. For what it's worth, I have a similar reaction when liberals try to document so well that Obama is a god-fearing Christian. Could we at least precede that argument with a plea for religious tolerance/acceptance?

However, you know that no one but no one is going to give a damn about the Rand Paul response ad, while the entire media, liberal, conservative, and mainstream, will jump on the Conway ad. And while I do think the ad isn't as horrible as Jon Chait seems to think it is, you can bet the conservatives will be all over it as a "both sides do it; see!" exemplar, and we liberals seem pretty well split about whether or not we think it's okay. It reminds me, a little bit, of Jon Corzine's "fat" ad from last year, where after gaining about ten points on Chris Christie since august, Corzine aired an ad that accused Christie of having "pushed his weight around" in connection with various of Christie's scandals, while showing a slow-motion picture of Christie getting out of a limo that wasn't very flattering to the latter's figure. Corzine had tied Christie, or even taken a narrow lead. After that point, the polls had them converging and staying tied until election day, when Christie won by four. I'm convinced that this ad lost Corzine the governorship of my home state, and I'm worried that Conway's ad may have lost us a Senate seat.