The Priorities USA ad features a man named Joe Soptic who blames Bain Capital, and by extension, Mitt Romney, for his wife's death from cancer after Joe lost his health insurance when his company went bankrupt. The ad has been completely debunked, even by mainstream media outlets, and the Obama administration itself has tried (unsuccessfully) to distance itself from these outrageous claims. Yet though the ad is steeped in falsehoods, has nothing to do with policy or agenda, and amounts to nothing more than defamation of character, no one's pulling the ad, let alone apologizing. The message is all that matters. It gets the job done, end of story.
The Romney ad, by contrast, criticizes Obama for "quietly gutting welfare reform" by dropping the work requirements that were put in place during the Clinton administration. Critics of this ad are saying that Obama is doing nothing of the sort and that Romney is manufacturing "faux outrage." Unlike the "cancer ad" put out by Priorities USA, which attacked Mitt Romney personally, calling him, essentially, a murderer, this ad attacks a legislative action taken by the Obama administration. Welfare reform, which received bipartisan support back in the day when such a thing was actually possible, was a very big deal, and Obama's actions deserve scrutiny. This is definitely fair game, and doesn't even begin to sink to the level of "dishonesty" that the Priorities USA ad did.
Nevertheless, David Lauter equates them on one criterion alone: whether or not the ads are honest. His implied conclusion? Both campaigns lie, both teams play dirty, lying is par for the course (hey, LBJ used similar tactics to discredit Barry Goldwater), and even if your ad is considered devious, at least it's getting the job done. Not surprisingly, this being the LA Times, Lauter leaves the reader with the impression that Romney's team plays dirtier than Obama's team. Obama spokeswoman Lis Smith even gets the last word: "Mitt Romney...is currently running an ad that a former president and authors of the welfare-to-work legislation have called a flat-out lie. When the Romney campaign finally reaches the high ground, we look forward to greeting them there."
Sorry. Not buying any of this.
First, as I already said, there's absolutely no comparison between these two particular ads. One slanders the opponent, the other challenges his opponent's actions.
But second, the idea that Romney's criticism of what the Obama administration did in allowing states to be exempt from the welfare-to-work requirements is valid. Lauter says it's not, but his support comes from the administration's own announcement, and then cites five states who have requested to be exempt, including two with Republican governors (as if that settles the matter). A more fleshed out discussion was aired this past Thursday night on the PBS News Hour between Peter Edelman, a law professor at Georgetown University, and Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation who actually helped craft the 1996 welfare reform program.
Here's an excerpt of their discussion, beginning with Robert Rector, who responds to Judy Woodruff's question about how he views Mitt Romney's recent criticisms of Obama's actions:
ROBERT RECTOR: Well, these are the work requirements that were put in the TANF [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families] law in 1996. I happened to have written most of these requirements. And these were the motor that drove that law to reduce poverty and to reduce welfare dependence by requiring welfare recipients to work or prepare for work -- or at least part of them -- as a condition for receiving aid. What the Obama administration has done is taken these and said, they're gone. They are out of picture. They no longer have any meaning in law. And we're going to replace them with something else. But you should trust us that we're not planning to really alter the program. Their action was completely illegal, and it violates and wipes out the entire core of reform.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Peter Edelman, as I understand it, the White House is saying that -- that is not what they have done. So, explain why what Mr. Rector is saying isn't correct, if you believe it's not.
PETER EDELMAN: It is not correct. What going on here in terms of the Republican attack on these guidelines is pure politics. It's election-year politics. This guidance from HHS says over and over again, repeatedly, that its aim is to improve employment outcomes -- I'm reading from it -- for needy families. It's to get more flexibility so there that there can be -- make it easier to get people to get off of TANF, instead of having work requirements in specific conditions -- situations where there's a waiver and that it's supervised by the federal government.
JUDY WOODRUFF: In other words, giving -- as I understand, it's giving states more flexibility to figure out ways to get people to work.
ROBERT RECTOR: It's allowing states to be exempted from the participation rates entirely. They say that they will waive or do away with all of Section 407. That's the entire work requirement in the bill. Every aspect, every clause, every phrase is now invalid. It no longer is binding. It's gone.
PETER EDELMAN: That's not true.
ROBERT RECTOR: It's absolutely true. And they're going to replace it with something that they will design unilaterally, with no input from Congress, and that will be something that will be far more lenient than the existing law. The left wing of the Democratic Party has opposed this law from the beginning. Half the Democratic Party voted against it in '96. They attempted to repeal it in 2002. They were unable. They have now used a bureaucratic tactic to wipe it out.
The entire discussion with video is linked below. Obviously, this is much more complex than a 30-second ad or even a write-up in the LA Times can address. But the bottom line, for me, at least, is that I simply do not see any correlation between the ad hominen attack ads coming from the Obama camp and the policy-related ads coming from Romney's side. Honesty, of course this matters. I'm sure both sides will be caught lying, and that's a shame. Politics is dirty. But I make the distinction between ads that attack an opponent's policies and ads that attack an opponent personally. As far as I can tell, and contrary to Obama spokeswoman Lis Smith, Romney seems to be the one on higher ground.
So far, at least.
Watch Candidates Spar Over Welfare Reform on the Campaign Trail on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.
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