Republican Party's Shame -- 6 Degrees of Separation in Action....

My brother made this astute appraisal of this year's particularly venomous political ads:

"It's like 6 Degrees of Separation. If you went to high school with a murderer, you're guilty by association."

I hate to see this. I support Jill Thompson. This is really bad.

From The Athens News - Editor Terry Smith

Worst political mailer ever:

Whenever I think I've seen it all with regard to negative campaign literature, something gets left in my mailbox that out-stinks what’s come before. Something so despicable and sick that the word “evil” isn’t an exaggeration.

The Ohio Republican Party funded the hateful mailer I’m referring to, which attacks Athens City Council member Debbie Phillips. The Democrat is running for the 92nd House District seat against Republican Athens County Auditor Jill Thompson.

The cover of the mailer shows a mugshot of a bearded man, and states, “Frederick Mundt KILLED a little girl… And,” the mailer continues on the inside, “Debbie Phillips is his ally.”
It then states, “Debbie Phillips opposes the death penalty, so murderers like Frederick Mundt aren’t punished.”

The mailer then describes the terrible kidnapping, rape and murder of Mundt’s 7-year-old victim. It concludes by saying, “Debbie Phillips may be a murderer’s ally, but she shouldn’t be our representative.”

Let’s be clear here. Debbie Phillips and Fred Mundt are not connected in any way. They don’t know each other, probably have never heard of each other. The Ohio Republican Party, however, is so desperate to retain this House seat that they will do anything, including trying to deceive people into thinking this basically decent Democrat is allied with the worst of the worst, a child rapist and murderer.

And it’s not just bending the truth. It’s flat-out lying to say that people who oppose the death penalty don’t think murderers should be punished. Inmates serving life terms in America’s prison hellholes would be shocked to hear that they’re not being punished.

A lot of good people oppose the death penalty on moral and ethical grounds. (I oppose it because of the possibility that we will mistakenly condemn and kill someone who’s innocent.) To say this means that death-penalty opponents are “allied” with the murderers is not only idiotic; it’s mean, malicious and sick.

Not to mention, using these tactics betrays how the Ohio Republican Party feels about you, the voters. They think you’re stupid, since anyone with a sixth-grade education can see through the pre-school logic used in the Fred Mundt mailer.

Jill Thompson probably didn’t authorize or endorse this mailer, just as Debbie Phillips didn’t authorize a union-funded mailer that unfairly and dishonestly attacked Thompson based on her use of sick days over the years.

But I do blame the Ohio Republican Party for this immoral garbage. And while I consider myself an independent when it comes to local and regional candidates, this makes it unlikely that I’ll look favorably at any candidate endorsed by the Ohio Republican Party anytime soon, including Thompson.