By KYLE PRATT
Opinion Editor
The race for New York’s 19th Congressional District is unusually popular this election cycle. All across the country, people have their eyes on the upstate New York district where progressive Democrat Zephyr Teachout is fighting hard against Republican candidate John Faso.
Political bigwigs have also weighed in on the race, which could decide the control of the House of Representatives in January. Former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders endorsed Teachout in September and has been continually working to raise money for her and other Democrats across the country.
The current Congressman for the district, Republican Chris Gibson, has made it clear that he will not be seeking reelection. Teachout hopes to win the Republican district for the Democrats, advancing their goal of taking control of the House of Representatives in 2017. The current race is very close, which is what makes it so important.
The race is not only unconventional in its popularity, but also in its campaign ads.
Teachout’s campaign has produced numerous well-made and powerful ads, including one of the candidate travelling down the Hudson River in a speedboat, talking about pollution, corruption and Wall Street. In another ad, she embraces her past as a professor, and “teaches” a class on political corruption, using a marker and a white board.
Teachout has almost revolutionized campaign advertising, straying away from the typical black-and-white photographs of her opponent next to quotes or statistics that make him look bad. Her ads focus on her, and why she feels she is the better choice in this election.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has not used the same tactics. They have released the usual attack ads that voters are used to seeing, targeting Faso for his connection to lobbyists and Wall Street.
Faso’s campaign has also tried the positive route, releasing ads with the popular Representative Gibson endorsing him.
The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), however, has gone full force against Teachout with ads that are both unconventional and personal, something Republicans have been trying to stay away from considering the nasty campaign at the top of the ticket.
Repeated in multiple NRCC ads is what the committee claims is a quote of Teachout supporting the deal with Iran in which the United States agreed to lift sanctions on the Middle Eastern nation if they halted their production of nuclear weapons. The horribly edited quote is a bit confusing.
“I support the Iran Deal,” Teachout’s voice says, the next part being confusing, “And has been a successful,” it seems to say, ending there. The NRCC claims that in the second half of the quote, the Democrat is saying “And it has been successful,” but the “it” seems to be lost while a stray syllable sneaks in before the word “successful.”
In another ad, which also features the Iran quote, the NRCC quotes the New York post, which called Teachout a “professional politician” and “a New York City lefty.”
This campaign commercial is misleading and confusing. First, Teachout has never held public office, which goes against the idea that she is a professional politician. She did challenge Governor Andrew Cuomo in the 2014 Democratic Primary for governor, but lost with 38 percent of the vote.
Second, the ad uses the conservative New York Post as a weapon to attack Teachout as a liberal Democrat. This is akin to Fox News calling Hillary Clinton a criminal. It doesn’t mean much.
Additionally, calling Teachout a New York City lefty is incredibly confusing, especially when the NRCC is running a simultaneous ad that claims Teachout is from Vermont, where she temporarily lived.
They have a somewhat legitimate argument by mentioning that she has only lived in the 19th district for about a year, but they complicate it by claiming she is loyal to New York City and Vermont at the same time. She was born in Seattle, so is that where her loyalty lies, or is she invested in literally everywhere except Duchess County where she currently resides? The message is confusing, and poorly conceived.
The NRCC is having a serious issue with staying on message. It seems as though they are throwing random punches at Teachout, hoping at least one lands. They are desperate because she is a solid candidate whose election could single handedly decide the majority party in the House, and they know it. But it gets worse.
The NRCC’s most inflammatory and most obscure ad yet is the very one where they claim she is from Vermont. In the roughly 30 second ad that features an actress pretending to be the Democratic candidate sitting at her desk, the NRCC ties Teachout to Bernie Sanders and Vermont, suggesting she is a socialist, or even a communist.
This approach is interesting considering Sanders handily won the district in the 2016 Democratic Primary.
A panning shot of the impersonator’s feet in Birkenstock sandals showing her toes with bright blue nail polish concludes the ad, and ads to the personal attacks levied at Teachout earlier in the ad.
“Zany professor Zephyr Teachout,” the narrator says. “She’s just not one of us.”
Referring to Teachout as a “zany professor” is a Trump-esque attack that demeans the Democrat and serves only one purpose, to make fun of her. This goal is echoed in the unconventional impersonation of Teachout, and the unnecessary camera shot of the actor’s feet. The committee tops off and accentuates the insult by claiming she isn’t “one of us;” a classic bullying tactic that proves nothing to the voter, except that Donald Trump has had a major influence on the Republican Party. Faso has attempted to distance himself from the Republican Presidential Nominee, but the ads run by the NRCC suggest that they have not done the same.
Whoever in the NRCC decided to run this ad clearly has no concept of basic human decency. The baseless connection made between Teachout and Venezuelan Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara, whose framed photo appears on the desk next to that of Bernie Sanders, is incredibly inflammatory and childish to say the least.
Not to mention, this despicable ad, along with the others, repeatedly refer to Teachout negatively as a professor. They use the fact that she is educated enough to teach at both Fordham and Duke University as an attack, unwittingly connecting her to President Obama who was also a professor, and is unusually popular for an out-going president.
Basically, while John Faso has tried putting space between him and Trump, the people trying to get him elected, the NRCC, are embracing the presidential candidate’s bully persona, attacking Zephyr Teachout on a personal level, and treating the voters as if they were stupid. Donald Trump’s tactics are becoming a new normal, even in local elections, and this is something that should concern us all.
