On the Fence on Election Day;Naming ‘Worst’ Immigration Ads

“The national debate on immigration policy, which came to a head in a midterm election year, has been a bountiful source of negative advertising. At the New Republic Online, the center-left magazine’s editors provide a handy list ranking “the seven worst immigration campaign ads,” which coincides with an editorial excoriating the party behind each and every one.

All seven ads flagged by the New Republic — and mostly pulled from YouTube, which features dozens of other examples — have been made by or for Republican candidates. Democrats, as a group, surely succumb to their own issue-exploitation instincts, but by and large immigration is not that issue. “The genre has several hallmarks,” TNR’s editorial explains. “It evokes a fear of lawlessness and a sense of growing social decay; it impugns opponents with a lack of patriotism (MITCHELL AGAINST ENGLISH LANGUAGE, reads the bottom of the screen in one of Representative J.D. Hayworth’s ads).”"

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