Pete Hoekstra Ad Draws More Criticism, Called 'Really, Really Dumb'

[onehandle]

LANSING, Mich. — A coalition of black ministers in Detroit called Monday for U.S. Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra to apologize for his Super Bowl ad featuring a young Asian woman speaking broken English to describe the impact of the Democratic incumbent's economic policies. The request came a day after an Asian-American group called the ad "very disturbing."

The Michigan Republican began taking heat after his ad targeting Democratic incumbent Debbie Stabenow as "Debbie Spenditnow" ran statewide Sunday during the Super Bowl. Some detractors said the ad was racially insensitive, while national GOP consultant Mike Murphy tweeted that it was "really, really dumb." Foreign Policy magazine managing editor Blake Hounshell called the ad "despicable."

The Rev. Charles Williams II of Detroit's King Solomon Baptist church, where Malcolm X spoke in the 1960s, joined with several other Detroit pastors calling for Hoekstra to pull the ad.

"The Asian woman speaking in this video would be no different than him having a black person speaking in slave dialect," Williams said in a statement Monday. "If Pete Hoekstra does not see any wrong in this commercial, he doesn't deserve to be in the race."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/06/pete-hoekstra-ad-china-michigan_n_1256912.html

Idiots. If they would have just have had her speak plainly and didn't have that 'Chinese music' in the background, there probably wouldn't have been quite the 'controversy.' If they did want a controversy, they failed, because they just lost Hoekstra the election.

They could have put her in a factory setting and sent an even more 'timely,' and Michigan centered message.

[handmade34]

1. ...

"If Pete Hoekstra does not see any wrong in this commercial, he doesn't deserve to be in the race."

obviously he doesn't deserve to be in the race

[drdtroit]

2. "If Pete Hoekstra does not see any wrong in this commercial, he doesn't deserve to be in the race."

The human race that is!

[bayareaboy]

3. I just have the feeling that ...

One of fly by night type of industries this year, will be full package writing and filming adds for GOP jerks. Get used to it. There will be no monumental stuff happening this year. You have to play to the intellect of the tea party so it had better be pretty simple. Ain't no Walden Ponds here, it will look more like a backed up septic.

[Badsam]

4. Where is FED chairman on his bike?

Did he already forget or does he just not know the Federal Reserve is the largest holder of US debt?

[bayareaboy]

5. And by the way ... ...

Do not, expect any sort of response back back from any one of those fools when they have done something really nasty that should not have run. that is part of their Free speech. This class of creeps can only whine about what others say about them, they really don't have judgement to realize that civility should be a two way street.

[hedgehog]

6. Nothing like invoking the Yellow Peril to gather votes!

[progressoid]

7. "Adding comments has been disabled for this video."

Gee, I wonder why.

[AlbertCat]

8. That ad is not really really dumb.

It's teabagger-astronomically-horseshit-knuckledragging-mindboggling dumb.



Dems are responsible for the debt? Who the hell believes that anymore?

Oh yeah... the teabagger-astronomically-horseshit-knuckledragging-mindboggling dumb.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. For the GOP

their credos is always "It's always easier to ask forgiveness than permisson".

They will continue with this sort of nonsense and will even do it, not just in an ad, but blatantly in interviews on radio and TV, and the media will let it slide.

[catrose]

10. Now let me see if I understand

The gentle Move-on ad of children pushing brooms and doing other grown-up jobs to pay for Bush's debt was rejected for Superbowl showing because it was controversial. But the same folks allowed this one to run?

I'd be very confused if I didn't know that IOKIYAR.

[jmowreader]

16. Think back to Randall Terry's dead-fetus ads

Mr. Terry, bless his heart, wanted to run ads full of aborted fetuses as a Superbowl ad, but it was rejected because of what it was. But by registering to run for president as a Democrat in all the primaries held close to the Superbowl (even though he's always claimed to be a Republican), the FEC rule allowed him to do it.

Same deal happened here.

It still doesn't change the fact this is a God-awful atrocity of an ad and it helped Stabenow more than its sponsor, but that's okay.

(An aside: pretend Newt wins enough primaries to take the nomination. The first debate should be entertaining: Gingrich will go on and on and on about Democratic spending, after which Obama will ask him to explain the ten C-130H aircraft he forced on the Air Force every year he was in Congress because the C-130 plant is in the district he represented. The Air Force didn't want the planes--they're too small for serious airlift work. But Gingrich did, so we got them.)

[catbyte]

11. Once a doosh always a doosh. Remember this?

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2006/11/06/8475/hoekstra-wmd/?mobile=nc

In June, Hoekstra And Santorum Insisted ‘We Found WMD In Iraq,’ Hoekstra Now Says ‘I Don’t Know’
By Judd Legum on Nov 6, 2006 at 9:56 am

In June, Hoekstra unequivocally claimed that WMD had been found in Iraq. From a press conference with Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), 6/21/06:

Congressman Hoekstra and I are here today to say that we have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons.

Hoekstra and Santorum went on a media blitz, telling anyone who would listen that WMD’s had been found. (The pair seized on a report describing abandoned, degraded pre-1991 munitions that were already acknowledged by the White House’s Iraq Survey Group and dismissed.) Yesterday, Hoekstra reversed course, saying it he didn’t know whether there was WMD or not. CNN, 11/5/06:

HOEKSTRA: Well, you know, there’s 48,000 boxes of documents that we’ve acquired. I think it’s important to declassify as much of the information. I don’t know whether there was WMD or not. But what we should do is make sure that we go through the process and fully explore what Saddam was capable of doing.

It was Hoekstra’s insistence on declassifying documents found in Iraq that lead to the publication of a document describing how to build a nuclear weapon on a government website.

The truth is that there has been an exhaustive search for WMD in Iraq. None were found. Nevertheless, “Hoekstra is still pressing U.S. intelligence agencies to look for possible weapons of mass destruction in Iraq–even though intelligence officials say further work is unlikely to reveal anything new about Saddam’s WMD programs.”

[JDPriestly]

12. Problem is it was the Republicans who closed all our factories.

Republicans like Romney.

I'd like to have a list of the Republican "businessmen" who closed American factories and shipped our jobs overseas. It would be long and very, very red.

[yellowcanine]

13. Not to mention the wisdom of sophomoric games with your opponent's name.

American voters generally are fair and silly games with people's names is seen as disrespectful. My guess is that this ad loses votes for Pete Hoekstra.

[SoapBox]

14. Another fine example of how STOOPID the GOPBagger / GOPathetic Party is!

...such idiots.

[ellisonz]

15. Really really really racist. n/t/

[Obama3_16]

17. this guy is insane if he signed off on this ad and thinks it is acceptable

not to mention why would you label yourself with a nickname that sounds remarkably similar to your opponent's actual name? wow.

[Mass]

18. The genius that did this ad has a long history and a weak gene pool (nephew of Inhoffe)

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/02/more-on-the-we-take-your-jobs-hoekstra-commercial/252661/

The brains behind the ad belonged to Fred Davis, shown in a picture from his bio at his company's site.

- Davis was also the creator of two other memorable political ads, Christine O'Donnell's "I'm Not a Witch" and Carly Fiorina's "Demon Sheep" ads, clips of both of which can be found on his site ("Witch" here and "Sheep" here). Plus other greatest hits, as listed by the WaPo.

- Last year he did those weirdo pre-announcement ads for Jon Huntsman, and at the time said that Huntsman was "the only GOP candidate who has a prayer of beating Barack Obama."

- His uncle is ... Senator Jim Inhofe! I'd love to be there at Thanksgiving. It's kind of like the Adams, Taft, or Roosevelt lineages of leadership.
...

[blue_onyx]

19. Spending

If anyone has a spending problem, it's Hoekstra. Here's a list of deficit spending policies Hoekstra supported but Stabenow voted against:

The Iraq War
Bush tax Cuts
Medicare Part D
Wall Street Bailout


Not only is the ad bad and offensive, it's completely hypocritical.

[Suji to Seoul]

20. I live in China. NO CHINESE PERSON EVEN TALKS LIKE THIS!!!!

This isn't racist? Holy shit!!!! If this isn't racist and disgusting, Sunrise is now in the west and not the east.

Let me show it to my girlfriend here in Chinese who speaks and understands English flawlessly and see if she is offended by this!

Update: My GF just watched it and asked me with a hurt look on her face: "This what Americans think of Chinese?" I could see the tears welling up in her eyes.

I told her, in Chinese, "just assholes." 只混蛋。

[pink-o]

21. Please reiterate to your GF that the masses of us don't see Chinese people this way.

Sux that she was hurt like that because some stupid ignoramus thought he could influence other stupid ignoramuses by scaring them with The Other. I guess it didn't work enough with Obama, so now these racist pigs are trying to scare people with Asian girls on bicycles.

I'm really sick of these lizard brained reactionaries and the divide and conquer politicians who play on their stupid xenophobia. And my sympathies to your GF that she got her feelings hurt because of it.

[obamanut2012]

22. Wow -- this is appalling

I'm very glad some GOPers are calling him on it.

[jimlup]

23. Heard a Republican slanted report on this on WWJ 950AM this afternoon...

The reporter mentioned that there was controversy about the ad and then he featured an interview with Hokstra who proceeded to defend the ad and attack its opponents.

Yeah total bullshit reporting ...

[pampango]

24. James Fallows: More on the 'We Take Your Jobs' Hoekstra Commercial

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/02/more-on-the-we-take-your-jobs-hoekstra-commercial/252661/

And, from a Michigander now living in the South:

As a Son-of-Michigan-In-Exile, I am appalled at Hoekstra's ad. It's so bad, I won't be able to make fun of South Carolina politics for the rest of the week, and I'm sure there will be something wonderful said by someone down here - they never disappoint.

The ad is flat out racist, and there is no idea behind it except racism. What, you say? The ad is supposed to show how China is getting ahead in global competition? Then why is the word "China" never mentioned in the ad? This as has only one message: vote for Hoekstra if you hate Asians (although it's probably phrased a little more offensively than that).

Finally, from a veteran of Republican politics:

Liberals are without doubt hyperventilating over the racist implications of Pete Hoekstra's political ad against Debbie Stabenow. But believe me, that's not a very effective way of attacking Hoekstra. Most of his potential voter base (including socially conservative industrial union members in Michigan) simply won't care, and he will in any case spin it that he is being persecuted by the politically-correct thought police.

The more interesting angle is one of hypocrisy. Hoekstra voted for permanent MFN for China in 1999, and China's creditor status vis-à-vis the U.S. simply reflects all those good-paying union jobs Hoekstra shipped there (yes, I know international economics is more complicated than that, but would certainly put Hoekstra on the defensive.)

[Beartracks]

29. Excellent point about the hypocisy.

Conservatives tend to tune out liberals who cry "racism" but most will recognize hypocrisy, especially if you put the words/videos of someone like Hoekstra side-by-side with his past votes/speeches.

=========================

[fujiyama]

25. What a repulsive ad

Fuck Hoekstra. I hope the people in MI will be smart enough to reject this douche as well as Romney.

[sarcasmo]

26. Before the ad was finished the wife and I looked at each other and

said, what a Racist fucker. We live in west Michigan and this garbage aired just before kick off.

[amandabeech]

35. I grew up in Hoekstra's district.

This is no big surprise. No decent politician ever came out of the West Michigan/De Vos wing of the party.

Every rep from this district has been and is horrible.

Unfortunately, they also have a big farm team.

Fortunately, West Michigan Republicanism doesn't always sell well with Republicans and independents in other areas of the state.

[sarcasmo]

36. I live in Jenison and regret every day moving here from Saginaw.

[amandabeech]

37. Wow! That's the heartland of this stuff.

I grew up just north of the crazy line in the county north of Muskegon.

There non-crazies in Muskegon, too.

It is unfortunate that the crazy region has the best overall economy in the state.

If you could move to Kalamazoo, you might find it better. Longer commuter, though.

On edit: My condolences. Hang in there and take as many trips to Chicago as you can.

[chervilant]

27. And,

he compounds the criticism by defending himself and the ad.

How sad...

[lovemydog]

28. I hope that mofo Hoekstra

loses

[sarcasmo]

33. +1

[sulphurdunn]

30. Where, Dear God, does

the Republican Party find these racist knuckle walkers? Do they breed them in subterranean caves? When I see things like this and consider the troglodytes running for President from this party, it's almost enough to make me believe in the necessity of eugenics for conservatives.

[mainer]

31. Hoekstra is an immigrant! Not a native-born American!

He immigrated to the US as a child. And he DARES to make fun of Asian Americans who were born here?

I hope Asian Americans vote with their pocket books. Since they're close to 5% of the population, and a prosperous minority at that, the GOP is going to be sorry they insulted them.

And the Dems should be respectful as well. Because as soon as the Dems join in with this race-baiting, they will regret it.

[mainer]

32. It just made me donate $250 to Stabenow

so I guess the ad really was effective!

[mainer]

34. Must-watch video lampooning the ad: "Chink it up!"

"outtakes" of the ad: