Democrat Steve Bullock debuted a television ad which does not mention his opponent, Republican Tim Fox, but stresses high points of Bullock's career that he has emphasized in his campaign, including the fact that he successfully defended state law guaranteeing citizen access to most Montana rivers and streams.
The pro-Fox radio ad, paid for by the Montana Republican Party, stresses Fox's main points in his campaign - that he is a stronger supporter of gun rights and will come down harder on sex predators. The pro-Fox ad also criticizes Bullock.
Bullock's TV ad
The ad: This 30-second spot is produced by SeeChange Media, a political and public affairs ad agency with offices in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. It features various still photos of Bullock arguing in a courtroom, talking to law officers, and with his wife, Lisa, and their three young children playing outside. A male voice-over is the narrator.
Script: “Steve Bullock is the only candidate for attorney general who's stood in a courtroom and protected Montanans - who made sure criminals served their time. When scam artists targeted seniors, he stepped in. When public access to rivers and streams was threatened, he defended our rights. With online predators and meth dealers targeting children, he's a father who knows how to fight back. Law enforcement says Bullock's the right man to protect our safety. Steve Bullock: An attorney general who comes prepared.”
Analysis: The first claim, that Bullock is “the only candidate for attorney general who's stood in a courtroom and protected Montanans - who made sure criminals served their time,” is accurate, although potentially misleading.
The sentence refers to Bullock's criminal-prosecution experience while an assistant attorney general under Democrat Joe Mazurek between 1997 and 2001. There, Bullock handled at least seven criminal appeals, arguing on behalf of the state in favor of maintaining convictions and sentences against convicted felons.
Fox has no criminal prosecution experience, so the assertion that Bullock alone has “made sure criminals served their time” is true. However, because of the way the voice-over is delivered, the ad could be construed to mean that Fox has never represented the state of Montana in a courtroom, which isn't true.
Fox served as a lawyer for the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, also in the 1990s. There, he argued before a bankruptcy court in Reno, Nev., on behalf of Montana in the bankruptcy of the Pegasus gold mining company.
Bullock did work to end scams against senior citizens. While at the Department of Justice, Bullock worked to write and pass the Montana Telemarketing Fraud Act, along with changes to the state's elder-abuse laws, among other things.
On stream access, Bullock successfully defended before the Montana Supreme Court the state's stream access law. That law guarantees citizens the right to access most rivers and streams in the state, regardless of who owns the land bordering it. The law was challenged by an out-of-state group, which said the law violated private property rights.
Regarding the ad's statement that “law enforcement says Bullock's the right man to protect our safety,” Bullock cites endorsements from 15 county attorneys, six sheriffs and numerous law enforcement officers, deputy prosecutors and others. The law officers in the ad are officers who have endorsed Bullock, and are not actors.
Fox's radio ad
The ad: This 30-second radio ad was produced by Anthem Media, a political media firm with offices in Austin, Texas; Nashville, Tenn.; and Washington, D.C. It's running on radio stations throughout the state. It features a fictional conversation between two people named “Kate” and “Ned” who are reading a newspaper article about the attorney general race and discussing it.
The script:
Kate: Ned, wake up. You gotta see this on Tim Fox.
Ned: Fox? Get my gun!
Kate: Not a fox. Tim Fox! The Montana native who's running for attorney general.
Ned: Oh, Tim Fox. He's endorsed by the National Rifle Association.
Kate: That's right. Says here the NRA and the Montana Shooting Sports Association endorsed Tim Fox because he'll protect our gun rights.
Ned: What about Steve Bullock?
Kate: Says Steve Bullock doesn't think it's the attorney general's job to protect our gun rights. And Bullock opposes new laws to crack down on sexual predators.
Ned: Wasn't Steve Bullock a lawyer back in Washington, D.C., and New York City?
Kate: Mmmmmhhhh. Hey, it also says that Tim Fox will crack down on sexual predators. Where you going, Ned?
Ned: I'm going to vote for Tim Fox. He's the only candidate who'll protect our gun rights and crack down on sexual predators.
Kate: Wait for me; I'm going to vote for Tim Fox, too!
Analysis: The ad correctly identifies Fox as “the Montana native running for attorney general” and correctly states that Bullock has worked as a lawyer in Washington, D.C., and New York City. However, it doesn't mention that Bullock also was born and raised in Montana and has practiced here for eight of his 14-year legal career. Fox's entire legal career has been spent in Montana.
Fox has been endorsed by the NRA and the Montana Shooting Sports Association.
The assertion that Bullock doesn't think it's the “attorney general's job to protect our gun rights” is misleading. To back up this claim, the Montana Republican Party cites a column by the Lee Newspapers State Bureau published in August. In that piece, Bullock is quoted as saying: “To make the race all about guns demonstrates that Tim Fox doesn't even understand the office he's running for. I don't know any Montanan who wants to take away our guns.”
Both Bullock and Fox have come out strongly in favor of gun rights. In July, Fox released an 18-point plan outlining his stance on guns and challenging Bullock to respond. Bullock responded with a letter to Fox saying he agreed entirely with 13 of the points, found a few of Fox's points confusing and concluded that two of the points involved powers the attorney general does not have.
Bullock has never said he doesn't think it's the attorney general's job to protect gun rights, although he did state in his letter to Fox that most of Fox's proposals involved new laws and that the attorney general has no power to enact laws, only to lobby the Legislature.
The ad's statement that Bullock “opposes new laws to crack down on sexual predators” may be technically true, but is misleading in that it doesn't mention that Bullock, like Fox, has presented plans to protect children from predators.
In Bullock's plan, he says Montana doesn't need “new laws,” but better ways of enforcing the ones we have. He calls for dedicating a Department of Justice prosecutor to work on crimes against children, creating a statewide Children's Justice Center within the department to coordinate prosecution of felons and services for victims for all crimes against children, and changing the rules of evidence in child sex-abuse cases to allow similar crimes committed by the accused to be presented in court as evidence.
Fox's plan calls for making it illegal to “groom” a child on the Internet for the purposes of abusing the child, making it illegal to travel to meet a child in person for the purposes of abusing them, and requiring that the state's sexual-offender registry also include an offender's e-mail address or screen name.
Given that both men have these plans, the ad's statement that only Fox will “crack down on sex predators” is incorrect.
On the Net
- Watch Bullock's ad at www.youtube.com/user/bullock4ag.
- Tim Fox's campaign Web site: timfox4ag.com/
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SexOffenderIssues wrote on Oct 13, 2008 2:40 AM:
Politics as usual! It's election time, so bust out the sex offender issues... "