Campaign season brings in the trash

The Tommy Ahlquist campaign has been punching fellow Idaho governor candidates Raul Labrador and Brad Little hard in Ahlquist’s recent TV advertisements. The ads constitute negative campaigning, no question. Depending upon your perspective, they could even qualify as attack ads.

But consider for a moment that to some degree, it might instead be counter-punching, and that at least these blows do not land below Brad’s and Raul’s belts.

No, for the belly of the campaign snake, we refer you to the same folks who last year personally assailed outgoing Coeur d’Alene School District Trustee Christa Hazel. Writing for a fringe organization called the Charles Carroll Society, southern California transplant and Kootenai County Republican Central Committee officer Alex Barron posted a piece April 9 in which he referred to Ahlquist and his campaign manager, David Johnston, as “filthy despicable racists.” Barron posted (and we’re sharing here) a Ku Klux Klan graphic to accompany his piece — an image which Johnston captured in a screen shot from the Charles Carroll Society website. The KKK graphic just happened to have a Raul Labrador ad on top of it.

Barron, an African-American, was accusing Ahlquist and Johnston of portraying Labrador as stupid and lazy. “That is their theme for the potential first Hispanic governor of the State of Idaho,” Barron wrote. “This is a racist dog whistle from yesteryear.”

Now, there are problems on many levels with Barron’s slime, not the least being that Ahlquist’s family includes an African-American woman.

Ahlquist stopped by The Press after his luncheon talk with Chamber of Commerce members Tuesday, and he was put on the spot about his campaign’s negative ads toward Labrador and Little. Relentless on the statewide stump, Ahlquist briefly showed signs of fatigue.

“They’ve been publishing awful things about me for a long time,” he said. “They’ve been censuring me and having votes against me in your Kootenai County party [Kootenai County Republican Central Committee] for a long time. But all those are lies. They are not the truth about me.

“Just last week, I’m driving to school with my daughter, who’s 15, and she pulls up this thing from your party up here.”

Ahlquist held out his phone, sharing Barron’s KKK graphic crowned by the Labrador ad.

“She pulls this up and says, “Hey, Dad, did you see this?”

Maybe it’s time to redefine negative campaigning. Want attack ads that set the bar of civility at an all-time local low? That honor goes to Mr. Alex Barron, disgruntled Californian, amateur blogger and Kootenai County Republican Central Committee secretary.

Remember that when you’re voting for precinct committee candidates on May 15.