Thanks for posting that Dan.
This is the kind of thing I'm talking about when I run that column
objecting to the Sopranos every year.
The acceptance of shows like that convinces far more people that
painting Italians that way is OK than there are people who are
unaffected by it.
I still maintain that Italian bias is the last one that is still
socially acceptable.
Bias happens to other groups, but that bias gets denied, not
defended.
--- In AsburyPark@yahoogroups.com, "dfsavgny" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> November 1, 2006
> Behind the `Mob' Ad, a Republican Donor With a History
> By LAURA MANSNERUS
> TRENTON, Oct. 31 A much-criticized television advertisement that
> uses a mob character to impugn Senator Robert Menendez was
financed
> by a Republican donor who has given more than $6 million this year
> to start ad campaigns attacking Democrats.
>
> The donor, Bob J. Perry, a Houston home builder, gave $4.45
million
> in 2004 to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, an independent
> organization that attacked Senator John Kerry's Vietnam War
record,
> damaging his presidential campaign and leading to protests about
the
> tactics used by such outside groups.
>
> The anti-Menendez ad was produced by one such group, the Free
> Enterprise Fund Committee, which said it received about $1 million
> from Mr. Perry. His role in the ad was reported on Tuesday in The
> Star-Ledger. Earlier this year, Mr. Perry started another group,
the
> Economic Freedom Fund, with a $5 million contribution. Together,
the
> committees are running attack ads in about a dozen states.
>
> In the anti-Menendez ad, titled "Politicos," a stocky character
with
> a leather jacket and a "Sopranos" accent rasps into a
cellphone: "We
> got a problem. Our boy down in Washington, Bob Menendez, he's
caught
> in a federal investigation. The feds start looking at these fixed
> contracts, and bada-bing, we're in it deep."
>
> "We need to get the bosses to fix this thing, like they did for
> Torricelli," he says at the end of the ad.
>
> Jill Hazelbaker, a spokeswoman for Mr. Menendez's Republican
> opponent, State Senator Thomas H. Kean Jr., said the campaign
> condemned the ad when it started running a week ago. That
statement,
> Ms. Hazelbaker said, "makes clear that we loathe the ad."
>
> She said the Kean campaign could not call on the sponsors to stop
> running the ad. Campaign finance laws prohibit any direct contact
> between campaign officials and the independent groups, known as
527s
> after a provision in the federal tax code that permits them to
spend
> unlimited amounts as long as they do not coordinate efforts with
> candidates.
>
> But Matt Miller, a campaign spokesman for Mr. Menendez, said: "The
> Republicans have been very good at getting all their donors to
fund
> side projects to smear Democratic candidates. We saw it pop up in
> New Jersey with the Free Enterprise Fund ads, which repeated Tom
> Kean Jr.'s smears."
>
> Todd S. Schorle, a spokesman for the Free Enterprise Fund
Committee,
> said that Mr. Perry provided almost all of the group's financing
but
> that the ad was entirely the creation of the committee staff and
the
> agency that made it, Nelson Warfield and Company. Mr. Schorle said
> the ad cost $200,015 and was to run for a week, ending today, on
> cable stations in several North Jersey counties.
>
> When asked about Mr. Perry, Mr. Schorle said, "We don't discuss
any
> of our donors."
>
> The committee has run ads against other Democratic Senate
> candidates, including Ned Lamont in Connecticut, Jon Tester in
> Montana and Harold Ford Jr. in Tennessee. The Economic Freedom
Fund,
> Mr. Perry's new committee, has run attack ads in at least five
> states.
>
> In Indiana, the state attorney general filed a complaint against
the
> group and forced it to stop automated telephone calls attacking a
> Democrat, Baron Hill, who is challenging Representative Mike
Sodrel.
>
> Anthony Holm, a spokesman for Mr. Perry, declined to comment.
>
> Mr. Perry is the nation's top donor to the independent groups this
> year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which
tracks
> federal campaign finance reports. In 2004 he and his wife,
Doylene,
> were the biggest Republican donors to 527 groups, giving $9.6
> million.
>
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