Television Coverage
During an election campaign it's not unusual to see some extremely biased stuff on the air. This year is no exception. Perhaps the most obvious and high volume ads attempt to assassinate Senator Ted Cruz by using snippets from a couple decades ago (featuring a really youthful Cruz saying it might be necessary to gradually increase the retirement age to keep Social Security solvent). The reason for his statement is obvious. Democrats have (allegedly) killed off so many unborn babies during recent decades that there are no longer enough new workers entering the job market to produce the taxes needed to fund Social Security and Medicare. For that reason it was fairly common 20 years ago or so for conservatives to speak about the various options for providing sufficient funding. The two choices were basically raising taxes or raising the retirement age. Since that time the government has abandoned those two options and decided to borrow until the cows come home. For that reason neither Cruz nor any other Republican now suggests the retirement age should be raised.
I notice that Ted Cruz hasn't responded with a plethora of his own attack ads against his opponent Colin Allred. That's probably because he's concentrating his media money on the more conservative areas north of the Valley. There's been plenty of talk about the Valley being winnable, but spending patterns would seem to suggest that Republicans aren't certain enough of that fact to be willing to bet big money on it. There is one Cruz ad I've seen locally, however, which is very effective in combating Allred. In it, Allred is quoted as calling the border wall “racist.” As early voting begins, Republicans will undoubtedly ramp up their media exposure. Democrats may well have unwisely burned too much money too early in the campaign.
There is one major difference between this year's ads and those of previous years. This year, Democrats aren't identifying themselves as Democrats and Republicans aren't labeling themselves either. Since being a Democrat has formerly amounted to an almost automatic win here in the Valley, that omission may be significant.
Ads, of course, are not the only source of controversy. Even the lone Trump/Harris presidential debate has set off alarm bells. A day before the debate a notarized letter appeared on the Internet that claimed to be written by a long-time ABC employee and which charged that the network had supplied Harris a list of the questions in advance and had agreed not to ask certain questions (such as those concerning crimes committed by a relative and queries concerning Biden's health). If true, the allegations reveal a media scandal of immense proportions.
There is, however, a problem with the letter. The whistleblower's name is blacked out, as is the name and identifying number of the notary. While it's plausible the information was withheld to keep the whistleblower from getting fired, it's also true that the very credibility of the letter depends on the author's self identification. The name is necessary to prove the letter isn't a hoax.
Even without the letter, however, the bias of the moderators was obvious. They repeatedly told Trump his statements were false when they were not. They told him, for example, that no state allows a baby to be killed after birth. In point of fact, some states (in the event that a baby survives an abortion) do not require that the baby receive medical care. Trump was also attacked by moderators for stating that the rate of violent crime had increased under Harris. The moderators contended that the number of violent crimes had fallen. Following the debate, the Department of Justice released crime statistics that corroborated Trump. Those same moderators never truth-checked Harris, even though she made a number of totally false statements. We are, therefore, left with the gnawing question of whether ABC News is simply biased or whether it knowingly collaborated with the Harris campaign.
-----------
Haughey is Senior Advisor of the Texas Republican County Chairman’s Association.