October 23, 2016
Sunday PM

Dan Ortiz's opponent in the State House race this fall missed an opportunity to distance himself from the miserable (yet laughable) antics of those involved with the Accountability Project. This big-money political action committee is behind a series of smear ads that have recently flooded Ketchikan residents mail and P.O. boxes. Some significant cash seems to have been spent designing, producing, and distributing these ads, yet the result cannot be taken seriously.

First of all, Daniel Ortiz? Come on. I've known Rep. Ortiz since high school, and Dan has always been the name he goes by. Those responsible for the ad come off looking out of touch, certainly not local.

Then there's the photoshopped pictures jumping off the page. In the most recent, Daniel is costumed in foppish English dressage gear astride a show horse, looking like a preening aristocrat. Anyone who knows Dan knows this caricature is about as far as possible from the down-to-earth guy he really is. Does the faked photography in this ad make us more or less suspicious of the claims it makes about Dan? What, other than images, might be faked here?

Little of substance is printed on these ads; those who schemed them know this and so their effort has gone into the cartoony graphics and altered photos. They think this is the kind of message hometown voters might find persuasive, but all it does is remind us of the grotesque clown show of this year s Presidential election. It might be naïve of me, but if I were Rep. Ortiz's opponent, I would be ashamed of being associated with such unsophisticated no, juvenile advertising tactics.

My daughter, who is old enough to vote for the first time this year, had Rep. Ortiz as her elementary school principal and then later as her high school American Government teacher. A few weeks ago, as we fished the first of these ads from our P.O. box, something about walnuts and photoshopped heads, she looked them over, frowned and said, "The other side looks pretty desperate." Exactly.

Rod Landis
Ketchikan, Alaska

Received October 23, 2016 - Published October 23, 2016

About: " Rod Landis has lived most of his life in Ketchikan, and has been for the past twenty years a Professor of English at the Ketchikan Campus of University of Alaska Southeast."

Related Viewpoints:

PACs' Negative Campaigning By Bob Sivertsen

Response to Political Attack Ads By Rep. Dan Ortiz

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