Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: Winning at any cost

Thursday, March 9, 2000 | 9:42 a.m.

Why have negative television ads been used during the presidential primary elections and will be used even more often during the general election campaign? Because they help spell success when the votes are counted.

Pollsters may ask individual voters their opinions about political attack ads and will be told they don't like them. Well, somebody must like them because winners at all political levels continue being returned to office after making personal attacks on opponents. Large numbers of voters continue to be "shocked" by negative and attack campaigns but must be influenced by them or they wouldn't be funded by candidates and their soft money friends.

Why did presidential candidate Gov. George W. Bush go to Bob Jones University and schmooze with the leaders who refer to Catholics as members of a satanic cult? Because it worked in South Carolina and will probably be a plus in some other Southern states. Pilgrimages to the school by Bob Dole, Ronald Reagan and Dan Quayle evidently gave them a boost. GOP Sens. Jesse Helms, John Ashcroft and Strom Thurmond even accepted honorary degrees from Bob Jones in recent years.

A recent St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial makes note that "it came to be an obligatory campaign stop speaks volumes about the passive bigotry that infects the nation. Just as it would be unfair to label these officials racists, it is dangerous to say there is no harm done when visitors make the Bob Jones pilgrimage and fail to denounce the school's deplorable policies while they are there. By saying nothing, these lawmakers imply some acceptance of a 5,000-student campus being taught to embrace views that use religious belief to justify intolerance."

At the other end of the political spectrum, Vice President Al Gore and former Sen. Bill Bradley paid their respects to the Rev. Al Sharpton, who is well known for the methods he has used to stir up racial problems. His most infamous plunge into hate was the promotion of the Tawana Brawley rape that didn't happen. The lead in the Toronto Star in 1988 tells it all. "Sixteen-year-old Tawana, the black New York schoolgirl who claims to have been savagely raped by six white men, has been pushed well into the background. Tawana's case has become the Rev. Al's cause. As a result, justice has not just suffered -- it has been pretty much abandoned."

In 1992 a Detroit News editorial gave the following view of Sharpton:

"He has broadsided some moderate black Americans as 'Uncle Toms.' He has skewered the mass media as patently racist. He has stood by characters that many Americans, black and white, regard as, at best, unsavory: Marion Barry, Tawana Brawley, the Minister Louis Farrakhan, and the defendants in the Central Park 'wilding' case.

"Few black activists stir as many strong and divergent feelings as Sharpton. To his opponents, he is derided as a huckster, an opportunist, a racist in reverse. New York Post columnist Jack Newfield has characterized the minister as 'a racial ambulance chaser.' "

A young district attorney, Steve Pagones, had his career, life and marriage turned upside down by Sharpton, who accused him of being involved in the Tawana Brawley rape. USA Today tells what happened:

"Exonerated in both a criminal investigation and an exhaustive probe by The New York Times, Pagones eventually brought a defamation suit against Sharpton and two allies, Alton Maddox and C. Vernon Mason. In July 1998, a jury in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., ruled in Pagones' favor, assessing the three defendants $345,000 in damages."

So why do so many office seekers continue to get Sharpton involved during campaign season? In 1992 he ran for the Senate and in the primary he picked up 21 percent of the vote from New York City. In 1994 both Republican George Pataki and Democrat Gov. Mario Cuomo courted Sharpton's favor.

Elections today can be won by vicious ads and negative campaigning. Cuddling up next to religious and racial bigots is also OK if it gains votes.

Who says so? A majority of American voters.