The campaign to get Democrat Jason Crow elected in the 6th Congressional District took a horrible turn with the politicalization of the tragic hostage situation at Platte Canyon High School in 2006, and a commercial reenacting the death of victim Emily Keyes.
We thought we’d seen everything. Sadly, now we have.
It’s disgusting and beyond tone-deaf, and if the ad itself weren’t bad enough, the reaction from the Crow campaign was even more unforgiving.
They scoffed. And mocked.
The ad is paid for by the Giffords PAC, part of a $1.5 million ad buy to support Crow in his campaign against Congressman Mike Coffman.
The PAC claims using Emily’s name as a school shooting victim in a Colorado-specific ad was just a random name they plucked out of thin air.
Just like the other ad they are running against Coffman, this time using the Aurora Theater shooting as their political prop.
The commercial uses a few seconds of a news report on the Aurora Theater shooting. We suppose they will also claim it was just some random Aurora Theater shooting, and not the actual Aurora Theater shooting.
The Giffords PAC says they will amend the Platte Canyon High School commercial, but they’re not taking it down.
The commercial was aired on 9News’s Next with Kyle Clark and included a brutal recap from the host of the reaction from Keyes’s family and the Crow’s camp.
Coffman called it “beneath human dignity.”
I respect Gabby Giffords, but exploiting the name and horrible death of one of our own to try to win an election is beneath basic human dignity. I can take criticism, but this is gross. This ad should be pulled and someone should be fired.https://t.co/1VP8lVuKd6
— Mike Coffman (@coffmanforco) September 25, 2018
From Clark:
“The campaign manager for Coffman’s opponent, Jason Crow, mocked Congressman Coffman’s reaction to the ad saying that it was the first time Coffman has shown outrage over a shooting.”
Keyes’s father called the politicalization of his daughter’s death disappointing, and a lawsuit is not out of the question.