Arizona Daily Star: “Recent Attack Ad By Graf is Bogus and Repulsive”
From today’s Arizona Daily Star - http://www.azstarnet.com/opinion/153919
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Recent Attack Ad By Graf is Bogus and Repulsive
Our view: Dirty politics, phony charges built on false assumptions are offensive enough to merit an apology to Giffords
The mindset displayed in Randy Graf’s recent attack ad against Gabrielle Giffords should be sufficiently scary to discourage people from voting for him.
In his ad, Graf, a Republican, accuses Giffords, his Democratic opponent in the race for the vacant Congressional seat in District 8, of benefiting from a sweetheart land deal between her parents and the city.
Almost everything about the ad is false, including the not-so-subtle suggestion that Giffords is a sleazy character feeding at the public trough.
If there is any sleaze in this controversy, it is in the shameless comments of Graf’s campaign manager, R.T. Gregg, whose interpretation of the facts implies that anyone who benefits from a parent or grandparent’s will is potentially corrupt.
After the Graf accusations appeared in a televised ad, Star reporters Rob O’Dell and Daniel Scarpinato checked the public record and interviewed city officials to see if there was any truth to the allegations.
What they discovered, at best, is that the truth had been mangled and misinterpreted to suit the needs of a candidate who is far behind in the polls and looking for a life raft. And some of the claims were outright bogus.
Here are the facts:
Giffords’ parents owned a chain of El Campo Tire shops, one of which used to be on 3.3 acres at West 22nd Street and Interstate 10. In 2000, the city offered to buy the land. At the time, it was thinking of having it developed with a supermarket that would serve the needs of the Rio Nuevo area.
But Giffords’ parents and a partner said they weren’t interested in selling. As a result, the city offered to lease the land. As city officials confirmed, and Graf should know, the Giffords family did not approach the city trying to sell or lease the land. It was the other way around.
If the city continues leasing the land, the Giffords family will earn $13 million over the next 50 years. This is straightforward capitalism, which a conservative like Graf should understand. It is not yet a crime to own land that somebody else finds attractive and wants to buy.
The Giffords family subsequently set up a trust fund, of which their daughter is a beneficiary. Part of the money the city pays to lease the land goes into the trust, and eventually Gabrielle Giffords will benefit from it.
To the Graf campaign, this is very suspicious. If it is, however, then every parent or grandparent who establishes a trust to benefit their descendants is potentially in big trouble.
The logic in Graf’s attack ad suggests that if your parents or grandparents leave you some money, you’d better know exactly how they earned that money or risk the possibility of guilt by association.
In the Giffords case, the accusation is simply an example of dirty politics, a phony charge consciously built on a false assumption, since there was never any guilt to be associated with.
Civil discourse and fundamental decency are hard to find in this year’s campaigns. Graf can demonstrate his respect for both concepts by apologizing to Giffords for this repulsive descent into character assassination.
