The struggle over health care reform has been a dirty fight for some time, but as we approach what many believe to be the finish line for the new health care reform bill the fight is getting even dirtier. The rough tactics being used to attack Democrats and try to shoot down the bill are starting to back fire. In southern Ohio, opponents of the bill have done themselves more harm than good by using Rep. Steve Driehaus’ small children in an ad designed to encourage the Democrat to stand firm as a “no” vote on the bill.
The newspaper ad appeared on Wednesday in The Cincinnati Enquirer and featured a large picture of the Representative and his two daughters. Driehaus is “outraged” according to his spokesman, Time Mulvey. ”He can take more than his fair share of political attacks, but this one crossed the line.”
The ad was paid for by the Committee to Rethink Reform, a Washington-based group that has already admitted that the ad was a mistake and apologized both in print, in another ad, and to the Representative. The strangest part of the decision to break the unwritten rule that politicians children are off limits is that Driehaus is actually firmly against the reform bill.
Political ads involving children have become more and more of a problem of late on both sides. This summer the White House had to put a stop to a series of ads from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine that featured 8 year old vegetarian Jasmine Messaih questioning why the Presidents daughters had better lunch options than she did. While the head of the PCRM did not see the ads as an infringement against the Obama girls, and the ads in Ohio did not directly attack Driehaus’ children, politicians maintain that mentioning their children in reference to their politics at all is dirty pool. What do you think?
