Bridge magazine gives a "flagrant foul" when it comes to fairness in an anti-Gary Peters commercial.
You might recall seeing the ad that accuses Peters of taking campaign contributions from convicted felons, and of hiring at one point, a former Kwame Kilpatrick aid who was convicted of bribery. The ad is sponsored by Ending Spending, a conservative 501(c)4 Super PAC funded by TD Ameritrade founder and former CEO Joe Ricketts.
The ad says:
“The company you keep says a lot about you. Take Gary Peters. Peters has so many ties to convicted felons, it’s hard to remember them all. There’s Tomo Duhanaj, an illegal immigrant and convicted felon. He preyed on Michiganders illegally loaning money at super high interest rates and using threats of violence to collect. He was convicted, sentenced to 41 months in prison and deportation. Peters’ campaigns took this criminal’s money six times over two years and also from his wife and brother, arrested on federal weapons violations. Don’t forget about Xhafer Laho, another convicted criminal. Peters’ campaigns took Laho’s money nine times over four years. Given all this, is it any surprise Peters hired Kwame Kilpatrick’s chief of staff to work for his congressional office, a man who was convicted of bribery in his last government job? Gary Peters. Can we really trust him?”
Bridge concludes:
The ad is nominally accurate in that two men, who have criminal convictions, had given money to Peters’ campaign. But the ad falsely implies that the men, Duhanaj and Laho, were both felons at the time of their donations (i.e., “…took this criminal’s money six times…”) and that Peters knew of their criminal backgrounds and accepted their money anyway, a portrait underscored with little subtlety by the Mafia-like organizational chart. (The Milton hire is fair game, since he had served time for bribery when he was hired by Peters’ campaign).
Given that high-profile campaigns like those for U.S. Senate seats draw thousands of donations from folks pristine and less so, attacking a candidate’s character for accepting money from donors before their criminal ways are exposed is dishonest and misleading. This over-the-top smear receives a Flagrant Foul.
