Super PAC Ad Tells African-Americans To Vote Republican Because Abraham Lincoln Freed The Slaves

Less than a week before the election, Republican panic has ratcheted up to hysteria mode and they are throwing anything and everything against the wall and hoping against hope that something sticks.

Talking Points Memo is reporting that Ohio is under siege with ads by a super PAC called the Empower Citizens Network. In what is an almost comical attempt to lure African-America voters to the Republican ticket, one ad states that they should cast their votes for the Republican candidates because Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves and that Democrats were against the Civil Rights Act.

While some of the statements in the ad are true—Abraham Lincoln did free the slaves and there were Southern Democrats who were opposed to the Civil Rights Act—the ad fails to take into account that Republicans used to be progressive, while today’s Republican party has been taken over by a fringe element that makes the good old boy Southern Democrats look like pikers by comparison. And despite that Southern opposition, the Civil Rights Act was first championed by President John. F. Kennedy and then finally brought to fruition by the efforts of President Lyndon B Johnson, both Democrats.

Another ad, airing on cable in the Columbus area, states that Democrats opposed the Emancipation Proclamation, using it as proof that it is a lie that Democrats support African Americans.

A full page ad purchased in the Toledo Blade pulls out all the stops, claiming “the Obamas throw lavish parties at the White House for ‘socialist friends’ that include flying in $100-per-pound Kobe beef from Japan; the President’s $800 billion stimulus did not produce any net jobs”, and that “this deep recession was not caused by the Bush tax cuts, Republican lax regulation, or Wall Street greed.” It also states “the nation’s financial troubles were caused by the subprime mortgage collapse that it says was created by Democrats. It blamed presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama, along with Janet Reno, Franklin Raines, Chris Dodd, and Barney Frank.”

Wow! Jimmy Carter gets the blame for the recession we find ourselves in. That’s right! It wasn’t the Bush tax cuts and off the books wars that did this to us. It was Jimmy Carter. He signed the Community Reinvestment Act passed by the Democratic Congress in 1977, allowing people who were not credit worthy to buy homes and now those chickens have finally come home to roost! What’s more, according to Empower Citizens Network, President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno threatened legal action against banks that refused to lend money to people who could not make mortgage payments. They did that to line the pockets of Democratic appointed executives so they could rake in huge bonuses. Imagine that! I had no idea that the president appointed bank executives but I guess you learn something new every day.

The list of lies goes on and on in the $98,000 in ads placed by Empower Citizens Network and they don’t seem to understand that tactics like this only serve to anger the very people they are trying to reach. But it is a measure of the fear and loathing experienced by Republicans as the final days of the election show that things are not going their way, particularly with the African-American community, where Obama holds a margin of 92 to 5.5 against Mitt Romney. Yeah, that’s 92 whole points vs. 5 and ½ points.

It would be funny if it weren’t so ineffably sad.


Visit her on Twitter @MsWerner and Facebook Ann Werner