It is more than just disquieting that $10 million were almost allocated to fund a Super PACs negative ad campaign designed to kindle the flames of racial tension and division in our country, it is shameful and embarrassing.
The in-earnest stage of the 2012 presidential campaign is only in its infancy,and millions of dollars were almost allocated to fund racially divisive negative advertisements, vis-a-vis a proposal commissioned by a conservative super PAC and its billionaire benefactor, Joe Ricketts.
Joe Ricketts, the founder of the brokerage firm TD Ameritrade, is the main financer behind Ending Spending Action Fund.On Thursday, the New York Times reported that the Super PAC was considering a proposed plan to attack President Obama on his ties to Rev. Jermiah Wright.
“The world is about to see Jeremiah Wright and understand his influence on Barack Obama for the first time in a big, attention-arresting way,” says the proposal, which was overseen by Fred Davis and commissioned by Ricketts.
The proposal went on to describe how the ads’ narrator would call the President a “metro-sexual, black Abe Lincoln.”
Once the story broke, the plan was ultimately rejected.
Speaking frankly, racially divisive negative advertisements of this sort do not belong in a presidential election. Whether one supports the president or not, he should be judged on his record, and an ad hominem attack of any sort should have no home in the public arena.
