Friday, May 08, 2009
A disingenuous attack against McAuliffe
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Brian Kaylor
Kaylor, of Harrisonburg, teaches political communication at James Madison University and is author of the book "For God's Sake, Shut Up!"
In political campaigns, candidates and party leaders often look to attack opponents on any and every issue possible. However, the Republican Governors Association appears to be reaching new levels of desperation as they launch a disingenuous and confusing attack on Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe. Republicans are attacking the longtime ally of the Clintons for trying to defeat Barack Obama during the Democratic presidential primary.
That is correct -- Republicans are attacking McAuliffe for trying to defeat the same candidate they tried to defeat in the general election. Since when did Republicans believe trying to defeat Obama was a vice? If campaigning against Obama is a disqualification for seeking Virginia's top office, then the Republicans must urge their candidate, Bob McDonnell, to bow out of the race.
At least McAuliffe spent the last several months of the campaign supporting and promoting Obama. The Republicans, however, fought Obama until the end of the election -- and actually continue to work against his proposals. So if campaigning against Obama is the Republican Party's standard, they are putting their candidates at the bottom of the list.
The Republicans will not, of course, critique McDonnell for his opposition to Obama. In fact, they will likely highlight and praise his opposition to various Obama policies. Thus, the problem with the attacks on McAuliffe is that they are disingenuous.
Apparently unable to critique him on the issues, the Republicans are leveling attacks just to attack. They are not holding to principles or making honest arguments. Instead, they debase the political process with their spin. This is not just political mudslinging but the creation of artificial mud just to have something to sling.
The attack on McAuliffe fits the pattern developing nationwide that suggests Republican leaders are out of ideas and instead are just becoming the party of "no." As Republicans struggle with being the minority party, efforts such as attacking McAuliffe for campaigning for Hillary Clinton last year seem unlikely to advance Republican candidates or policies. Republicans should put forth their productive agenda for Virginia and America -- instead of just attacking -- and they might just find political redemption.
One of the most noteworthy rhetoricians of the last century, Kenneth Burke, critiqued this type of argument as unfair and overly partisan. The problem with this approach is that there is nothing the attacked can do to fix the problem.
After all, the attacker -- like the Republicans -- is attacking someone for doing what the attacker is actually guilty of doing. This argument is not about the issues but rather indicates that the attacker will attack no matter what happens.
Of the various types of arguments Burke addressed, he believed this is one of the most unethical because it is disingenuous and hypocritical. When the Republicans decided to spend their time and money launching www.billandterry.org to attack McAuliffe for campaigning against Obama, they resorted to an unfair and overly partisan tactic.
The tagline of the Republican Governors Association's hypocritical Web site is "Why Virginians aren't laughing." The answer, of course, is because Virginians are sick and tired of disingenuous and polarizing political attacks like the one leveled against McAuliffe. It is time to get back to the issues and take principled stands.
Virginians deserve better than what these out-of-state Republican governors are slinging into our state.
