We in North Carolina have known for some time that Governor Pat McCrory’s moderate image is a mirage. He proved that beyond any doubt last week, when he effectively told his transgender constituents that they don’t need civil rights protections because there is no such thing as a transgender person. Well, if possible, McCrory went even deeper into the gutter this week. How do you get worse than spitting in the faces of your constituents? Easy. Exploiting a sexual assault victim for political gain.
On Monday, McCrory significantly ramped up the ante in his effort to defend House Bill 2, North Carolina’s blatantly discriminatory bathroom bill. He rolled out a campaign ad featuring a sexual assault victim arguing why HB2 needs to stay on the books. Watch it here, courtesy Real Facts NC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxV32WwaBRA
The ad features Gina Little, the CEO of Dream Power Therapy, a therapeutic riding center in Greensboro that works with special-needs people and abuse victims. She is an abuse victim herself; she was molested by a teenage assailant when she was nine years old. For that reason, she was “horrified” when she learned that McCrory’s Democratic opponent in November, state attorney general Roy Cooper, had thrown his weight behind the effort to strike down HB2.
Little slammed Cooper and Obama for wanting to “force schoolchildren to share the same locker room, shower and restroom with someone who claims to be the opposite sex.” As far as Little is concerned, McCrory is “doing what’s right” by standing up for HB2. She thinks it’s proof positive that McCrory is “on our side.” But there’s just one problem. The ad is horribly misleading.
McCrory seems to want North Carolinians to believe that Little was attacked by a pervert in a bathroom–the nightmare scenario that HB2 was supposedly crafted to prevent. But Tom Bullock of WFAE discovered that Little was actually molested by her older brother at home. In other words, this wasn’t a case of a dirty old man molesting a girl in a girl’s bathroom. This was incest. But apparently McCrory doesn’t want you to know that.
I’ve seen some pretty nasty and below-the-belt ads from North Carolina Republicans in my time. But this ad is easily the worst. And that’s saying something. I’m old enough to remember Jesse Helms’ infamous “Hands” ad in the 1990 Senate race. But as loathsome as Helms was, I find it hard to believe even he would stoop low enough to twist the story of a sexual assault victim for his own ends.
The most benign explanation for this ad is that McCrory is growing desperate. Every recent poll shows McCrory trailing Cooper by anywhere from seven to nine points. Additionally, according to Buzzfeed, the state GOP is running scared, with some openly fearing that they could lose everything they’ve gained over the last five years. Apparently Democrats smell blood in the water; one Democratic strategist thinks that “a tsunami is building” in North Carolina.
McCrory can’t hope to get any coattails from Donald Trump. Most of those same polls show the presidential race between Trump and Hillary Clinton is very much a coin flip in North Carolina. However, Trump has virtually no infrastructure to speak of in the state even though there is no way for him to get to 270 without it.
So take a governor who is tanking in the polls, add a presidential standardbearer who has been all but invisible in a must-win state, and you have a recipe for the political equivalent of a Hail Mary. That’s about the only way to describe this ad. I seem to recall the last time that a GOP candidate in North Carolina tried this. Back in 2008, Elizabeth Dole responded to polls showing Kay Hagan breathing down her neck by rolling out an ad accusing Hagan of taking donations from an atheist group.
The ad was roundly criticized both inside and outside the state. Within days, Dole’s poll numbers cratered, and Hagan went on to win by over eight points. McCrory deserves similar treatment for daring to twist the story of a sexual assault victim to his advantage. If McCrory has anything in him, he will pull this ad now. Let him have it–politely, of course–on Facebook and on Twitter.
