PACs lack of nuance can mislead NH voters

By Paul Briand
Nuance and context are often victims of political campaigns.

And no organizations do it better than the faceless, agenda-driven political action committees spurned on by the Citizens United decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2010.

Both sides of the aisles are guilty in this regard with PACs driven by Democrat-backed causes and issues and PACs driven by Republican-backed causes and issues.

We’re seeing this play out in the current campaign for the U.S. Senate between incumbent Republican Kelly Ayotte, who is seeking a second six-year term, and Democrat Maggie Hassan, who is giving up re-election run for governor in order to challenge Ayotte.

The expected battle royale between the two -- Ayotte must first get past a handful of Republicans, including Jim Rubens and Tom Alciere in a GOP primary -- is considered one of the most important races in the country since it could help decide whether the Senate remains in the GOP majority or swings back to the Democrats.

Any number of important issues are in play in this race -- gun control, national security, terrorism, jobs, or the Supreme Court vacancy, just to name a few. One issue that has become an important one in this race -- and in other statewide races -- is the agonizing, ongoing crisis with heroin and opioid drug addiction.

It is an issue that has been played out by PAC advertising in the U.S. Senate race, and it is an example of how nuance and context get lost in the message.

A particular instance involves a recent television ad from One Nation, a conservative PAC working on behalf of Ayotte’s re-election. An NH1 news story noted that One Nation is “linked to the pro-Republican American Crossroads super PAC and its non-profit Crossroads GPS, which were both co-founded and steered by Karl Rove, the mastermind behind President George W. Bush’s 2000 and 2004 election victories. The organization is run by Steven Law, who is also president of Crossroads. Law was also a former chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.”

The ad is -- see it below -- highly critical of Hassan and her role (or lack thereof, according to the ad) in the ongoing heroin crisis.

It talks about “Gov. Maggie Hassan’s budget veto last year forced delays for substance abuse programs” and includes the image of text attributed to the Portsmouth Herald that reads - “Gov. Hassan’s needless budget impasse...”

The text is, in fact, a portion of a Herald editorial posted online Sept. 18 with the headline: “Gov. Hassan’s needless budget impasse comes to an end”. Read the full editorial here.

Here’s where nuance and context get lost. The editorial speaks to the entirety of the budget impasse between the Democratic governor and Republican leaders in the state Legislature. The budget contained money to fight the drug crisis, which Hassan and Republican leadership supported and encouraged. The budget did not, however, contain money for, among other things, negotiated pay raises for state employees. That is why she vetoed the budget. Negotiations between her and legislative leaders resolved the impasse.

A PAC supporting Hassan’s election - the Senate Majority PAC -- responded with an ad of its own, shaming Ayotte. See it here.

Some of the context lost in this ad is that a candidate, by law, has no control over what a PAC will do or say in its advertising. The Senate Majority PAC can wag a finger at Ayotte all it wants, but Ayotte has no control. She could disavow the ad, but she's not likely too, no more likely than Hassan disavowing a questionable ad made on her behalf to slam Ayotte.

The fact is that Republicans and Democrats alike have been united in trying to find ways to address the drug crisis -- Hassan and legislators on the state level, Ayotte and the rest of the New Hampshire delegation on the national level. They should be supporting each other’s efforts, not decrying each other’s efforts on this issue.

Too bad Ayotte and Hassan couldn’t have agreed to limit the role of outside groups to begin the campaign, but the contentiousness was evident from the start. The PAC back and forth -- with the muddied context and nuance -- will surely continue in the weeks ahead, requiring voters to siphon truth from fiction.