Here’s something you’re not likely to see much this campaign season: a campaign ad “truth-test” that declares the harshest accusations flat out “TRUE.”
But that’s what happened when 9News took a closer look at the damning Coors campaign ad slamming Congressman Ed Perlmutter’s record of supporting rapists’ rights.
The fact that the truth test came on right after the ad itself aired makes it even more damning for Perlmutter.
CLAIM: Ed Perlmutter voted against the law that protects victims of child abuse from having to face their abusers in court.
This statement is true.
CLAIM: Extreme Ed Perlmutter voted against Colorado’s law allowing the use of DNA evidence to convict sexual predators years later.
There is no denying how Perlmutter voted as a State Senator in 2001. The ad’s statement about the vote is true.
There’s been a lot of generic “X Republican loves rapists” ads appearing in mailboxes and on TV screens the past couple of months, pretty much always derived from an issue far removed from dealing with the perpetrators themselves.
The difference here being that Perlmutter’s votes are directly to support alleged constitutional rights of actual rapists that they don’t actually have. Those allegations are true, whether his campaign likes it or not. It’s an extreme position — one we would not want to be defending.
The more voters see this truth test, the more this potentially damning piece of evidence will begin to sink in.
With a significantly large chunk of the 7th Congressional District’s voters brand new to Perlmutter, the Coors campaign is drawing on a somewhat blank canvas here.
There are two key facts to remember:
1. Perlmutter’s an incumbent, but only to a slight majority of the new district.
More than 40% of the 7th Congressional District is new to Perlmutter after the redistricting plan pushed through the courts by Democrats. Democrats thought he was safe after his big victory in 2010 — they never expected the freight train of the Coors campaign.
2. Coors spent big, early, introducing himself to 100% of the district with positive, memorable ads.
For a number of months the only ads outside the presidential ads and related outside spending have been that of Joe Coors for Congress — quirky, positive, Hickenlooper-esque even, spots. Those spots, plus the built-in soft name ID from being a Coors, has resulted in a 96% name ID rate in polling. Could Coors have better name ID than the incumbent?
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