David Vitter's new ad trafficks heavily in race-baiting

[pampango]

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/10/vitter_jumping_on_the_anti-imm.html

Earlier this week, Nevada Senate Candidate Sharron Angle put out an anti-immigrant ad that used some of the same images of "scary looking" immigrants as an ad launched by Louisiana Senate Republican David Vitter.

Now Vitter has yet another anti-immigrant ad running, and this one is even worse than the previous one or Angle's. The Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Louisiana is blasting the new ad, "Welcome Prize," as "demeaning" and "racist." It attacks his opponent, Democrat Charlie Melancon, over illegal immigration, and features a group of immigrants running along side a fence, only to be greeted by a sign that says "Charlie Melancon welcomes you to the USA!" and "bievenidos a los USA!" There is also a group of smiling people holding a giant check payable to "illegals."

Check out how the "illegals" are portrayed:............................Now here's a group of smiling white folks with a big fat check made out to "all illegal aliens."


Melancon is not exactly a progressive hero -- he voted against the Affordable Care Act, for example. He's also an immigration hawk, having voted for a border fence and the much more restrictive House version of immigration reform back in 2005, which would have made it a felony to be in the United States illegally. In other words, on immigration policy, Melancon is pretty much just as bad as Vitter.

On top of all this, Louisiana, you might have noticed, is not located along the U.S.-Mexico border, so it's unclear to me what fence the ad is referring to. The state has one of the lowest populations of undocumented workers in the country. Aside from being misleading, this ad is basically a transparent attempt to gain political support by demonizing Latinos, who as Andrea Nill points out, were a huge part of rebuilding the state after Hurricane Katrina. Anything to make people forget about Vitter dabbling with prostitutes or his aide's domestic violence scandal.

[Liberal_in_LA]

1. big guy in diaper, now that's scary!

[catgirl]

3. Ad: big men in diapers trying to sneak in to Louisiana

Ad: David Vitter doesn't even know the geography of the state of Louisiana.

Ad: David Vitter is a racist pig.

[KingFlorez]

2. When in doubt, get racist

The Jesse Helms School of campaigning is still alive.

[gratuitous]

5. And for some reason

I suspect that Vitter will be just as successful as old Jesse was.

[11 Bravo]

4. The dude coming through the fence looks like a bearded George W. Bush.