MPR: Senate Candidates in Television War

Senate Candidates in Television War
By Laura McCallum
September 21, 2000
Part of MPR's Ad Watch series

A week into the general election campaign, the first attack ads of Minnesota's U.S. Senate race are on the air. The Republican National Committee and Republican Senator Rod Grams are running a commercial questioning the credibility of DFL Senate candidate Mark Dayton. Dayton is out with his own ad challenging Grams on the issue of Social Security, but it doesn't rise to the level of a personal attack.

THE AD ATTACKING DAYTON essentially calls the independently wealthy department store heir a "hypocrite" for railing against drug companies over the high cost of prescription drugs, while owning drug company stock. It shows the Dayton expressing outrage over drug companies "making a profit off other people's illnesses," followed by grainy video of a bus, in apparent reference to the Dayton-sponsored Canadian bus trips for seniors seeking cheaper medications.

The names of 10 pharmaceutical companies scroll across the screen, as an announcer questions whether this is the same Mark Dayton who owned hundreds of thousands of dollars in drug company stocks before he dumped them to run for the Senate.

Ad: The Mark Dayton who now wants us to believe he really cares about seniors and the high costs of prescription drugs? Hey, Mark, you must have taken one strange bus trip if you think we believe this.

The spot earns the distinction of being the single-most-distorted ad so far of campaign 2000 in Minnesota, according to analyst Dean Alger, the Minnesota director of the Alliance for Better Campaigns. Alger says eight of the 10 Dayton drug stocks listed in the ad shouldn't be included; five were sold off in 1993, when Dayton was state auditor, and three are held in a family trust, from which Dayton has never profited.

Dayton has said he made a mistake by not selling off $500,000 in Abbott Laboratories' stock until a reporter brought it to his attention in early September. Alger says the ad also includes distorted visual images; it shows video of Dayton which is slowed down to present him in an unflattering light.

Alger says the campaign advertising code adopted by the Minnesota Compact's election-reform effort calls on candidates to run video of their opponents in "real time."

"This is just basic fair campaign practices, and it's born of the research and feedback from the public that says, 'We don't want distortions, we want meaningful discussions,'" says Alger.

The Grams' campaign has said regardless of when Dayton sold off his drug stocks, the point of the ad is that Dayton has profited from the very companies he's attacking. Alger says while Dayton is somewhat vulnerable on that issue, the attack ad goes over the line, and is likely to be rejected by voters.

"It's risky business to engage in this kind of a personal attack, especially this early. You'll find most people - I'm not guessing on this, I've done too much of this, I've watched too many citizen responses - this is likely to be responded to negatively by most people, other than hard-core Republican partisans."

While Dayton's ad doesn't attack Grams personally, use use of words like "risky" and "extreme" are a clear attempt to paint the incumbent as a candidate outside of the mainstream, says Dean Alger. Listen to this ad

Alger notes that when Grams first ran for the Senate in 1994, his DFL opponent, Ann Wynia, ran negative attacks in the final days of the campaign, which may have backfired and helped Grams win his seat. While the Republican ad is a personal attack, Dayton is running a spot attacking Grams' Social Security proposal.

Ad: Rod Grams has proposed a risky privatization plan for Social Security that would take eight percent of the money now going into Social Security and redirect it to private accounts. It's a plan so extreme, not a single other Senator would co-sponsor it.

While Dayton's ad doesn't attack Grams personally, use use of words like "risky" and "extreme" are a clear attempt to paint the incumbent as a candidate outside of the mainstream. Alger says it's accurate to call Grams' plan "risky," because there are risks involved with privatization, and Dayton accurately notes that no other senator has signed on to Grams' legislation. He says "extreme" is a loaded word, but it is fair to say that Grams' plan goes further than other privatization proposals. And Alger says Grams' plan wouldn't automatically direct 80 percent of Social Security taxes into private investments.

"The assumption is that everybody will opt out of the Social Security plan, and that's a big assumption, and really needs more explanation than is being done here, so in a way, it's a bit misleading," says Alger.

While Dayton and Grams use their ads to take on each other, Independence Party Senate candidate James Gibson, who doesn't have the money to compete financially with the other two, is re-running a humorous ad produced by his campaign before the primary.

Titled Who is James Gibson?,(Watch ad) it features Gibson questioning people in downtown Minneapolis, none of whom has heard of the Senate candidate. Alger says the ad is a refreshing change from traditional political commercials, especially in a Senate campaign that's off to a nasty start.

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