Ad
#10: TV Ad: "Bad For Colorado "
by The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
Denver Post
It's No More Mr. Nice Guy In State's Senate Race
Attacks, negative ads proliferate as Election Day and early voting draw closer
By Karen E. Crummy and Mark P. Couch
Saturday, October 02, 2004 -
Say farewell to the Ken Salazar - Pete Coors civility pledge.
With only four weeks left until the Nov. 2 election, Coors, Salazar and interested third parties are name-calling, hurling accusations and mocking the candidates' positions.
"Everyone complains about negative advertising, but negative advertising works," said Bob Loevy, a political science professor at Colorado College. "Candidates have no choice but to use it and use it vigorously. The only limit is how much money they can raise to pay for it."
Both the Coors and Salazar campaigns seem flush, raising the possibility that this will be the costliest race in Colorado history.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has unleashed an ad that rips Coors for his management of the Golden brewery.
The ad recounts a litany of offenses - air pollution, job cuts, fish kills - displayed by a backdrop of critical newspaper headlines.
"It's not just that Coors is one of Colorado's biggest polluters, Pete Coors cut hundreds of Colorado jobs, outsourced others overseas and merged the company, making millions for himself, but costing more American jobs," the ad declares. "It may be good for PC, but it's bad for Colorado."
Brad Woodhouse, spokesman for the DSCC, said the ads are fair.
"Since Mr. Coors decided that Salazar's profession is open to inspection, I suppose his is too," Woodhouse said.
Although Salazar said after the primary election in August that he would object to an outside group coming in and running negative ads, he declined to condemn the ad Friday.
"Pete and his friends have made their best effort to trash me every chance they get. I need to defend myself and attack back," he said, noting that he had not yet seen the ad.
Salazar's failure to condemn the DSCC ad, after asking Coors to pull a similar ad in August, was criticized by Coors spokeswoman Cinamon Watson.
"It's typical of a professional politician and a lawyer," she said. "Clearly he believes one set of rules are for him and another one for everyone else."
Most claims in the ad are supported by the facts.
The Coors plant has been fined repeatedly for air and water pollution problems and is the third-largest source of water pollution in the state, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission show that the Adolph Coors Co. has cut 900 jobs in North America since 1994.
Coors' merger with Molson Inc. is still pending.
Pete Coors is fighting back with an ad criticizing the support Salazar has received from an arms-control group, the Council for a Livable World.
The ad implies that Salazar and Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry are weak on national defense. The two are shown on the same screen, and the ad says they are endorsed and funded by "an anti-defense group" that opposes a national missile defense system.
Dan Allen, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said the Washington, D.C.-based group provided funding for the ad, which was approved by Coors.
The Salazar campaign said that Salazar supports President Bush's defense budget and continued research into missile defense.
"Pete Coors is telling another lie about Ken Salazar and his record," said spokesman Cody Wertz.
Loevy said the sour messages started sooner this year because so many voters cast ballots by mail or go to the polls early. Absentee balloting begins Oct. 18.
"I'm afraid there will be more of the same, and the ads will get more negative as we get closer to Election Day," Loevy said.
But neither candidate will get an edge from the negative ads, Loevy predicted.
"What we get here essentially is a level playing field," Loevy said. "If one side was running negative ads and the other was not, one would have an advantage."
Salazar has recently released an ad showing Coors saying: "I don't know what a common man is."
But a tape from the debate shows that Coors was defending himself from Salazar's allegation that he wasn't a common man. Coors made the statement to say there isn't a one-size-fits- all label for "common man." He continued: "A common man is somebody who lives in this country that works hard to provide jobs for others, who works, either providing for others or working for someone else. I've done both."
It also states that Coors opposes the importation of prescription drugs from Canada, which is not surprising, since he is "backed by hundreds of thousands of dollars" from drug and insurance companies.
The latter part is misleading. Americans for Job Security, an independent group backed by the pharmaceutical and insurance industry, is running the ad opposing Canadian drug imports, not Coors.
