Nancy Johnson: "Grandma Turned Knife Fighter"

by: BranfordBoy

Thu Aug 24, 2006 at 18:47:08 PM EDT

First Johnson, who represents Connecticut's 5th Congressional District, the northwest part of the state, raises millions of dollars for her re-election campaign from special interests, particularly from the medical and pharmaceutical industries, over which she has great influence as a high-ranking member of the Republican majority on the House Ways and Means Committee.

Then Johnson's campaign produces and broadcasts a series of commercials portraying her as a caring grandmother looking after everyone. Oh, look -- There's Nancy getting free prescriptions for all the old folks. And there's Nancy attending the memorial service of someone who was killed in the terrorist attack on New York, earning the gratitude of the victim's family and proving that she REALLY CARES.

It gets better.

And then the caring grandmother unleashes the attack ads against her Democratic opponent, ads in which the caring grandmother can be found only for the briefest instant, when she delivers the legally required disclaimer in her own voice that she approves this message. No caring grandmother would want to stick around long enough to be associated with the demagogic abuse that is to follow.

This year Johnson's opponent is state Sen. Christopher S. Murphy of Southington, and Johnson's campaign is broadcasting a cartoonish TV commercial proclaiming that Murphy has voted to raise taxes 27 times and on just about everything -- your house, your car, your gas, even your pet. Twenty-seven times! Twenty-seven times! Twenty-seven times!

(Get it yet? That was 27 times!)

Well, OF COURSE Murphy has voted to raise taxes. He's running against Johnson, isn't he? He must have voted to raise taxes. Actually, 27 times, if that number is close to true, may not be so high for someone who already has had four years in Connecticut's General Assembly. And as Murphy replies in a TV ad of his own, he has voted to cut some taxes as well. So just how does it all add up?

But Johnson's attack ad isn't your grandmother's attempt to sit down, go over the details carefully, reason things out, and do right by everyone. It's your grandmother smashing the skillet down on your head because you may have just THOUGHT of reaching into her cookie jar.

That is, it's a smear. For as Lenin is supposed to have observed, if you label something well enough, you don't have to argue with it.