A conservative blogger has called Richard Moore's radio ad "race-baiting."
Tar Heel native Mary Katharine Ham, who blogs on the national site Town Hall, writes that the Democratic gubernatorial candidate's barber-shop ad shows the North Carolina Republican Party "what a real race-baiting ad looks like."
"Moore's new radio ad takes place in a barber shop, and comes complete with exaggerated dialects," she writes, noting that Moore condemned the N.C. GOP's ad linking presidential candidate Barack Obama to Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
"I wonder if Obama will call on Moore to stop running it. Ha. Enjoy playing the, 'Imagine if a Republican ran this ad' game."
The state Republican Party e-mailed a link to the column to reporters this afternoon.
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Re: Ham: Moore ad is 'race-baiting'
I listened to the radio ad.
It is one of the weirdest pieces of campaign disinformation I have ever heard. I guess would call it "minstrel-show campaigning."
The voices are supposed to be those of an African-American barber and one of his customers.
The whole concept of the ad is so stupid that it ends up being insulting to the intelligence of the African American Democratic voters at whom it is aimed. No wonder Harvey Gantt, Alma Adams, and almost all of the rest of the African-American caucus are denouncing Moore, although in this case the politicking truly does seem beneath contempt.
To judge from the latest poll, Moore's desperate efforts are not doing him any good. I trust the numbers will show up the same next Tuesday, that he will lose the primary, and that he will then enjoy the reputation that belongs to a person who has attempted to do something in a disgraceful and underhanded way--and failed anyway. Should he win, there are things in his own background that his Republican opponent can exploit with joyful abandon.