From the front page of the Metro section of the Columbus Dispatch:
Here's a link to the video: http://bloggingblue.com/2009/06/18/lee-fishers-revealing-youtube-video/
I actually voted for Fisher's Democratic opponent, a woman. I wonder what kind of ad they would have run had she won the primary - her eating children?
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/05/07/copy/gop-catches-flak-for-racy-anti-fisher-ad.html said:GOP catches flak for racy anti-Fisher ad
Friday, May 7, 2010 2:53 AM
By Jonathan Riskind
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
WASHINGTON - The National Republican Senatorial Committee launched a raunchy Internet attack ad against Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, showing him shirtless and implying that he was masturbating.
The National Republican Senate Committee's Web ad attacking U.S. Senate candidate Lee Fisher is filled with sexual double-entendres. Some think its coarseness will blur the GOP's message in the race.
The GOP group, headed by Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, said it stands by the ad, denying any sexual connotation.
But the video quickly went viral, even eliciting a rebuke via Twitter from film critic Roger Ebert: "Vile! GOP ad manipulates still photo to make Dem candidate appear to be masturbating."
A bipartisan sampling of students and faculty members at the University of Akron concurred that the video exceeds the bounds of good taste.
Political scientist John Green said he showed the ad to students and staff and there was a rare consensus among Democrats, Republicans and independents.
"They all said, 'Wow, that was uncalled for,'" Green said.
The video uses a bare-chested photo of the 58-year-old Democrat set to provocative music and filled with sexual double-entendres (such as "Lee Fisher cares more about his job than yours"), with Fisher's image sometimes undulating across the screen.
At the end of the Republican ad, the final image of Fisher, with one hand on his bare stomach and the other below his waist, dissolves to these words: "Dare to See More?" That is followed by an invitation to go to a GOP-sponsored website that attacks Fisher.
Green said he has viewed thousands of political spots during his long tenure as a political scientist but doesn't recall seeing anything quite like this one.
"It just struck me as very odd," Green said. "Right when I think I can't see anything new, I see something new. My immediate reaction was that if this is not over the line, it is pretty close to the line from the point of view of Ohio politics. The implication is that there is something not appropriate about the lieutenant governor."
Amber Marchand, a National Republican Senate Committee spokeswoman, acknowledged that the image of a bare-chested Fisher was meant to create a buzz. She said it has the full approval of the committee, which is charged with helping elect Republicans to the Senate.
"The Web video is about jobs and about Lee Fisher's record as jobs czar and 400,000 jobs lost under his watch," Marchand said. "Obviously, there are a lot of different ways that folks (use to) draw attention to Web videos."
The image of the shirtless Fisher came from a documentary about the 2006 race for governor by Fisher's son, Jason, and his friend, John Intrater. They sneaked into Fisher's study late one night, where a tired and shirtless candidate was hunched over his computer.
The Web spot's criticism of Fisher's economic-development role is a legitimate subject for debate and political fodder, said John Elliott, a Kenyon College political-science professor who studies the role of the news media in American politics.
But the bare-chested image might wind up distracting viewers from the ad's assertions, Elliott said. In the relatively new world of online political videos, he said, the ad's creators might have thought that something they wouldn't put on TV was acceptable on the Internet.
"The shirtless part detracts from what would otherwise be an effective ad," Elliott said. "I assume they will run the ad on TV, without the shirtless Lee Fisher. They think the rules are somehow different for the Web, or that there aren't any rules."
Asked what GOP Senate candidate Rob Portman thought about the ad, a spokeswoman criticized Fisher for also running attack ads. "Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher started this campaign attacking Rob Portman, and the Democratic committee has been running Web videos against him for almost a year," Jessica Towhey said.
If that ad was submitted for TV, it would require "some discussion" as to whether executives would put it on the air, said Chuck DeVendra, sales director for WBNS-TV (Channel 10). WBNS-TV is owned by the parent company of The Dispatch.
"Many times you see commercials on the Web that never make the airwaves," DeVendra said. "My guess is that this might be one of those times."
Dispatch Washington Bureau reporter Jack Torry and Senior Editor Joe Hallett contributed to this story.
Here's a link to the video: http://bloggingblue.com/2009/06/18/lee-fishers-revealing-youtube-video/
I actually voted for Fisher's Democratic opponent, a woman. I wonder what kind of ad they would have run had she won the primary - her eating children?
