There’s something about an Aqua Buddha ad.
You’ve probably already heard the one about the Democratic candidate who questioned his Republican opponent’s claims to Christian faith. Republicans are shocked, shocked that a Democrat would go after a member of Christ’s party, as if everyone doesn’t already know that Democrats would hate God if only they believed in Him. Even some liberals have hopped the outrage train. Democrats don’t do religious attack ads, lest they give the impression that there are religious tests for office, or signal that voters care much about a candidate’s faith.
Here’s the thumbnail: Democrat Jack Conway is running against Republican Rand Paul to represent Kentucky in the Senate. During Sunday night’s debate, they traded barbs over an ad Conway is running that says Paul, who sought and obtained the endorsement of James Dobson after proving his prolife Christian mettle, belonged to a “secret society that called the Bible a hoax,” a group that was “banned for mocking Christianity and Christ.” The ad also says Paul “once tied a woman up,” telling her to “bow down before a false idol and say his god was ‘Aqua Buddha.’” During the debate, Paul went the “have you no decency, have you no shame?” route, and Conway flatly said, “You don’t have the guts to stand by your positions.”
Some liberals echoed Paul’s response. Jonathan Chait called the ad illiberal, lamenting its “sickening premise” for coming “perilously close to saying that non-belief in Christianity is a disqualification for public office.” (Chait also helpfully reminds readers that Paul is a devotee of another, less Christian-friendly Rand.) Others find liberal opposition to the ad “prissy,” and applaud Conway for hitting Paul where he’s trying to live. Who’s right? I suspect Chait is exaggerating the ad’s implications. I’m with Mark Silk, who notes that if a candidate is going to run on his Christian faith then his opponent is well within his rights to say “explain these things”–especially when these things entail membership in a group that called the Bible a hoax, and participating in a hazing prank that forced a presumably Christian woman to blaspheme. Mark concludes:
Democrats have tended to respond by saying, “But we’re religious too.” So because the religion card is being played by everyone, I’d say that if there’s reason to question its face value, let the questioning go on.
Of course, this smoke might clear if Paul denied Conway’s charges. But he hasn’t, and, as Factcheck noted, he really can’t. The only problem in Conway’s ad, according to Factcheck, is the claim that Paul wants to end tax deductions for religious institutions. That, at least, is something Paul’s campaign denies.
For my part, this controversy is a tempest in a shave cup, and it distracts from what may truly be the worst political ad of the 2010 cycle, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn’s attack on his Republican challenger Bill Brady:
Tags: after shave, Ayn Rand, dogs as children, idiot capitalist cults, Jack Conway, Land of Lincoln, Rand Paul
Grant–
I’m sure you meant to say that Conway and Paul are running for the U.S. Senate. :)
In Paul’s case, I am not seeing a serious contradiction between being a Libertarian and worshiping an after shave.
Yes, thanks. Just in time for a coffee break.
I think this is the best ad I have seen, but it comes from Canada. It seems the current mayor of Winnepeg, who is running for reelection, did something unfortunate (by accident) during a soccer match while the cameras were running.
Turns out that was a hoax, David. (Although that really is the mayor accidentally kicking a kid in the face.)
As a karate expert… http://youtu.be/x4o-TeMHys0 (I could post these all day.)
Paul sounds like he was an obnoxious and arrogant iconoclast in college who probably inhaled. Which describes yours truly and most of the people I went to college with, including a now-GOP state legislator whose friends dragged around a plastic duck they called Morte Canard, which they pretended to worship with fake Gregorian chants. The only dirt I can dig up on him now is that he and his wife are well-off Catholics who live in a much tonier district than I do and raise weiner dogs.
Conway is grasping at straws. If he can’t come up with a more cogent campaign strategy against Paul, he deserves to lose.
This whole (I am a better Christian than he is) “controversy” seems more like a Southern politics thing rather than anything else. A tempest in a mint julep, my darlin’.
I agree, this ad is almost as ridiculous as questioning the president’s Christian bona fides.
Oh, wait…
Rand Paul sort of addressed the issue on Hannity and then on Ingraham. Why won’t he say what Jean said above?
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/10/finally-rand-paul-starts-talking-about-aqua-buddha-video.php?ref=fpb
“Why won’t he say what Jean said above?”
I wondered that, too. In fact, puzzlement to me since about age 5 why more people don’t say (do, think) what I say.
I have Bow to Aqua Buddha t-shirts! http://www.cafepress.com/echoforsberg/7378180 (Also new to the shop are The Rent is Too Damn High tees and buttons!)