Anyone who wants to witness the wonderful result of the Citizen’s United decision can just take a gander at what is going on in the District 2 City Council race where Isaac Benton faces Roxanna Meyers.
The city has never witnessed such a downright dirty, nasty attack campaign in a little old local race that usually features the kind of bland optimistic campaign statements about some general ways to promote the city and keep constituents happy.
From the moment she stepped on the Council District 2 political stage after having been appointed by the mayor, Roxanna Meyers has proved a divisive force. Scrapping $1 million in federal grant funds, in Feb. Meyers squelched constituent debate on the issue and unilaterally halted plans for the roundabout at Candelaria and Rio Grande based, she said, on her talks with North Valley residents who disapproved of the project and feedback Meyers said she received on her website.
Roundabout proponents were furious at the apparent arrogance Meyers had displayed by truncating discussion of the issue. Former Council member Isaac Benton decided to run against Meyers. A member of the Council for eight years, Benton, a liberal, had been gerrymandered out of his old seat when Republicans reformulated his Council district. Benton launched his battle against Meyers by choosing public funding for his campaign.
Here’s where Citizen’s United entered the picture. North Valley retiree and long-time liberal Jerry Ginsburg was also furious, furious at Isaac Benton and the ongoing public debate about the roundabout. Ginsburg put his own money, some $40,000 behind Meyers. He launched his own PAC that seemed but a front for his own backing of the Republican Roxanna Meyers. The forty grand was equal to or exceeded the amount usually spent on local races. Benton immediately protested saying the injection of money by one citizen was “despicable.”
Dan McKay of the Albuquerque Journal quoted Ginsburg as saying, “He’s (Benton) showing great disrespect for the voters. I don’t think they can be bought.” What would inspire Ginsburg, a long-time liberal who had served as a board member for Opera Southwest, been a delegate for President Obama’s 2008 Democratic convention, and a long-time liberal to come out for the Republican, Rox Meyers? More to the point, what would move the civic-minded Ginsburg to throw all this money (allowed by Citizen’s United) into the campaign and risk tarnishing his reputation by appearing to “buy the election?” According to the McKay article, Ginsburg said he doesn’t “…have much time left on this planet.”
Whatever his motives, the effects of Ginsburg’s money on this small-time local campaign have been immediate and none too positive. With the Ginsburg PAC funds, Rox Meyers started a series of campaign mailers to constituents, mailers that were broadside ad hominim attacks on Isaac Benton and his character, attacks that Benton has said have been false and misleading attempts to smear him.
Meyers in one early mailing sent in August accused Benton, an architect and city planner, of influence peddling by not disclosing projects he was presenting for consideration by City Council, a charge Benton denies, saying that he disclosed projects to the Council and to the City Attorney. The mailer also contended Benton has attempted to block Paseo del Norte upgrades, a charge that Benton also denies, saying he sent the project to the voters for approval, and voters rejected the proposal.
The design of these attack mailers underscores the down and dirty nature of the Meyers rhetorical push. Benton is invariably pictured in golem-like contrast to the peppy, preppie Meyers. Cast in sick brown, baby puke yellow and blood red, the mailers make Benton appear out of touch, a doughy figure with mouth open, eyes narrowed, blabbing into space or standing detached and stupid, staring at nothing while Rox Meyers smiles a confident and cheery grin, engaging and responsive to the the reader’s eye.
“Isaac Benton has verbally condemned a constituent,” One of Meyer’s later mailing screams. The campaign piece goes on to say that Benton attacked Ginsburg personally by calling him “despicable.” But Benton didn’t level the charge against Ginsburg. He criticized the injection of funds into the campaign as “despicable.” Forming an argument by extrapolation, the mailer asks if Benton respects the residents of district 2, as if Benton’s challenging Ginsburg’s financial backing of Meyers was a personal attack aimed at all the constituents in the district. It might appear that Ginsburg himself had entered the race, which in fact he had by throwing in more money than most people make in a year to support Rox Meyers.
The same corpse colors bedeck Meyers’ subsequent punch-mailer against Benton. As if to make it clear who the real candidate in the race is, the headline shouts that there are two candidates running for office in district 2—Meyers and Benton (Not Ginsburg.) In her attempt to split off potential progressive voters from Benton, the leaflet argues that Benton doesn’t support LBGT voters because he didn’t attend various gay events in the city, events attended by Meyers, as if attending events means support for gay rights. Meyers is a Republican who has never contributed to or offered any substantive support for gay causes.
And what about Benton? Has he fired back, issuing broadsides against Rox Meyers in response to this deluge of negative and sometimes false campaign information? Benton has issued a rebuttal on his website to some of these charges, but when he has been able to counter this raft of exceptionally pejorative ad hominem attacks, he has pretty much stuck to concrete actions he wishes to take to address problems in the city, or he has issued positive-image mailers that are pretty general and are what we have come to expect from campaign info. in a local city contest.
Recently Roxanna Meyers has issued a new broadside mailing, this time in happy blue, white, and green. The verbiage on the mailer says, “Roxanna doesn’t play politics. She has no hidden agendas…She is dedicated to transparency and open communication,” contentions that her dirty campaigning seems to flatly contradict. Meyers most certainly played politics with the roundabout issue by cutting off debate and discussion. She joined forces with Jerry Ginsburg who formed a murky PAC to attack Benton and his character. Rox Meyers surely seems to have political debts that she owes to Ginsburg and whoever else has thrown money behind her, money that has been used to hammer Benton into the ground, money that Benton didn’t have because he accepted public financing instead of PAC funds for his campaign, and he has no way of fighting back against this sleazy, disreputable attack against his character because Ginsburg’s money has sucked the air out of the campaign, stifling discussion of issues in favor of One Candidate who is the only voice on the public stage.
The recent history of attack campaigns has shown that divisive and ugly personal assaults are disliked by the voters but they have also proven to be devastatingly effective. Who cares if half-truths or outright lies are spread during a campaign like a sickness that infects the electorate, who cares if the climate of debate and fair contest are destroyed by moolah? The goal is to win no matter what.
The District 2 election will show if dirty campaigning soaked in money and contemptible rhetoric are more convincing substitutes for honest debate and public discussion of issues. In any case, we will see much more of this kind of thing at the local level now that the Citizen’s United decision has transformed participatory democracy into a game that is more and more decided by negative campaigning and rich folks who have the ability to try to buy our elections.
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