I want Matt McGrath to win the District 33 Senate race. I want him to beat Rep. Phil Jensen, who's just full of misogyny, Islamophobia, and embarrassingly bad policy ideas.
But I'm not sure I want to win this way:
When you go to vote, it's important to know your choices. Phil Jensen claims that he's a very effective legislator and a hundred percent pro-family. But public records show Phil Jensen has an unstable temperament and a checkered family past.
He barged into his daughter's elementary school, disrupted the class, tried to take a video, and was kicked off the premises. He was reprimanded by the principal in a letter stating "such behavior as you exhibited today will not be tolerated."
According to police, he even put a hole in the wall, broke a table and the front door in a domestic dispute with his ex-wife.
All of these things are on public record. And we've had our fill of Jensen.
Hi, I'm Matt McGrath, independent candidate for State Senate District 33, and I approve this message.
Paid for and authorized by Matt McGrath for State Senate [transcript, campaign ad, Matt McGrath for Senate, posted to YouTube October 31, 2012].
This text plays over a slow scroll of a poster for the 1931 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde starring Frederic March. Team McGrath has altered the poster to read "Starring Phil Jensen." I have received secondhand reports that the audio of this ad has played on Rapid City radio.
Had I been Matt McGrath, I'd have refused to approve this Halloween trick. First of all, I'd have given the overwrought narrator a whack upside the head.* Straighten up: this is an election, not an oral interp round. The tone on "disrupted the class," complete with frightful musical hit, pushes too hard, as does the tone on the allegations of domestic property damage. (Plus, the pause in "All of these things are // on public record" makes no sense.) That overwrought tone makes the ad sound like McGrath is overdramatizing allegations that aren't big enough to stand on the facts alone.
Oh yeah, facts. There's reason two I send this ad back for rewrite. The ad does not say when or where the alleged incidents took place. Granted, the audio already runs 60 seconds. But I just timed myself extemping revisions to the above text to cut the first line and include names, dates, and places. I did it in 50 seconds. I talk fast, so slow me down, and we've got 60.
Even if McGrath doesn't want his narrator to drop the theatrics, he could still use the video and his website to post the documents and citations to support his claim. Forget the cheesy movie poster: show the darn documents! Zoom in on the key phrases, circled in blood red. Don't even give Jensen the chance to deny; put up the evidence that he can't refute. Otherwise, you're just creating a Matt-said-Phil-said.
What little is stated in the ad does not establish the ad's opening thesis, that Jensen has an "unstable temperament" and a "checkered family past." Maybe I'm just hypersensitive to folks questioning a man's temper. But if you're going to claim a man is unstable, you'd better have more evidence than two sentences with no back up and no opportunity for the rest of us to hear the rest of the story. While I don't excuse breaking things to settle arguments, I don't see the evidence that Jensen in this unsourced incident that Jensen has treated his family poorly.
As for his effectiveness as a legislator, I might be willing to stretch his "barging into a classroom and disrupting class" as prefiguring his votes for HB 1234 to barge into the classroom and disrupt class with policies detrimental to education. But nothing in this ad indicates a failure by Phil Jensen to carry out his duties as an elected representative of District 33.
I would not let my people run this ad in its current form. Even bulked up with the documentation I ask for above, I'm not sure I'd let it run, not unless my opponent went there first with distracting and false personal attacks that require a response and expose my opponent's hypocrisy. Even then, I'd have to admit that I was cheapening the public discourse.
Throwing out the Republican majority in Pierre will require throwing some punches. But this isn't the right kind of punch.
*Update 19:15 MDT: For a real lesson in over-the-top theatrics, see this Kristi Noem attack ad on Matt Varilek. It's absurd, it lies, but it still gets slightly better grade than McGrath's attack above for at least mentioning policy.
Isn't Mr. Jensen a Howite of Gordontic proportions?
I say let the ad run.
Thanks for following up on this! I agree on the tone of the ad. You are right that these same points could have been brought out in a different manner. And yes, grudznick, he is a Howite of Gondontic proportion. Still, and all, it would be nice to see Jensen defeated.
I do actually like the ad, I think to win against a Republicant in Rapid City you need to go negative, but I do agree it does seem a little over the top and theatric. I'd tone it down a tad but if the stuff is factual then I have no problem going at him. But then again I don't have morals, especially when it comes to attacking republicans.
It is obvious that the Noem campaign is in trouble. Why else the ridiculous ad. My estimation it will only garner more votes for Matt Varilek.
The only thing Noem has said is look he is a Democrat. Nothing that she has done as an incumbent, its just look hes a Democrat, he went away for his education, blah blah blah. Its like bright shiny object.
Rep. Noem will be an extremely effective lobbyist for Phil Jensen's agenda: clitoridectomies for newborn girls will be good for South Dakota.
It's certainly no worse than Matt saying Kristi talks on her phone instead of working. But we should elect him because he will work hard. Work hard on what, raising taxes and passing more regulations?
Oh yes, Ryan: it's much worse. The phone ad looks at an actual incident that happened at work, in Congress, while Noem was supposed to be earning her pay from us taxpayers but instead was wiling away her time on the phone. Varilek and I can document that incident; the McGrath ad offers no documentation and focuses on incidents that happened long before Jensen's elected service.
Kristi Noem says she supports capping deductions, reports show between 17K and 25K. I am wondering how much will that affect you? For my dad, a farmer, that would raise his income tax average from $0-5K to 10K+ a year, and way more in some years. Capping it at 25K, that is the seed deduction and he is a small farmer. You want to talk about devastation to the economy. If farmers can't get deductions they will spend less, and that means the agricultural economy slows, which is the #1 industry in South Dakota. If you want to talk about bad for South Dakota, elect republicans.