GOP group yanks ad

Talk about GOP incompetence:

Republicans yanked a radio ad Thursday that was aimed at black voters in Kansas and Missouri comparing Social Security benefits to slavery reparations — except paid to whites by blacks.

It was the latest skirmish in a multistate war over Social Security ads pegged to November's congressional elections.

The commercial was paid for by a Republican interest group and aired in the Kansas City area on an urban contemporary station whose listeners are predominantly black. GOPAC, which is headed by Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, said the ad was a mistake and withdrew it Thursday after calls from reporters.

"You've heard about reparations, you know, where whites compensate blacks for enslaving us," the ad says. "Well guess what we've got now. Reverse reparations." The commercial says blacks earn thousands of dollars less in retirement benefits than whites because they have shorter life spans.

"So the next time some Democrat says he won't touch Social Security, ask why he thinks blacks owe reparations to whites," the ad says.

This is how the geniuses in the GOP woo the black vote?

In an ironic twist, the guy behind this media buy -- Richard Nadler -- has been in the news before. You might remember this little incident:

Nadler was criticized in 2000 for an ad that featured a woman saying she had put her son in a private school because drugs and violence at his public school were "a bit more diversity than he could handle." The ad urged voters to support Republicans, but leading GOP candidates denounced it.

Update: New blogger Mark Kleiman does a follow-up post, examining the premise (with an assist from economist Max Sawicky) that whites live longer than African-Americans.

Posted September 12, 2002 02:10 PM | Comments (2)