Who's responsible for Spada's anti-self-defense hit piece? The Blame Game begins

November 19, 2004
Cleveland Plain Dealer

Matius: Spada's gun barrel ad loaded with misinformation

by Julie Carr Smyth

Columbus - Some Cuyahoga County voters found themselves looking down the barrel of a gun a couple of days before the Nov. 2 election. In the form of a glossy campaign flier, that is.

The startling gun barrel ad, distributed by the Ohio Republican Party for State Sen. Bob Spada, was aimed at discrediting Democrat candidate Robert Matius in the race for the u-shaped 24th Senate District that rings outer Cuyahoga County.

It accused Matius of having "dangerous ideas" about concealed weapons because he was supported by the pro-gun Ohioans for Concealed Carry.

Now, both Matius and the OFCC are calling the ad a political and informational misfire. (Spada won the election handily, and has since been elected into GOP leadership for the Senate session that begins in January.)

Matius said he is preparing an elections complaint against Spada's campaign, which had reported at the last deadline spending more than $150,000 to Matius' $4,000 on the race.

The Democrat characterized the gun leaflet and one of Spada's television ads as "very misleading and very misrepresentative of my views."

He said that, while he was favored over Spada by Ohioans for Concealed Carry, he is not the gun zealot the ad suggests. He supports bans on some assault weapons, requiring safety locks and local discretion in regulating concealed handguns, he said.

Spada voted against the concealed-weapons bill passed by the legislature last year, a position he said is important to his constituents. But he said he left ad strategy to party experts.

Scott Borgemenke, a political consultant to the Senate GOP caucus, said the gun flier sought to capitalize on Spada's moderate position on guns in a district where Democrats were expected to turn out in droves for presidential nominee John Kerry.

Jim Irvine, director of the OFCC's Political Action Committee, which has viewed the Republican party as an ally, said the ad could have hurt other GOP gun backers whose districts overlap Spada's. "It's ironic that the Ohio Republican Party is spending money attacking an idea that most of its members support," he said.

Commentary By Chad D. Baus:
Who among OhioGOP and Senate Republican leaders decided that an incumbent candidate who outspent his opponent approximately 35 to 1, and who won his race by more than 20 points, needed the "help" of an anti-self-defense attack piece which impunes the votes of the vast majority of legislators in both the Senate and House as having supported a "dangerous idea"?

Bob Spada suggests in this article that opposing concealed carry is "important to his constituents". But Spada's Senate district overlaps the House Districts of Rep. Jim Trakas and Rep. Tom Patton, both of whom have supported concealed carry and both of whom have been elected by these same constituents three times. Trakas even faced down an attack from a few Million Mom Marchers during his 2002 reelection bid, and went on to achieve an overwhelming victory.

Bob Spada is now blaming unnamed "party experts" for this outrageous and factually incorrect flyer. But OhioGOP Executive Director Chris McNulty has told OFCC that while he did approve the mailing, it was deemed strategically important, designed and "fact-checked" by someone in leadership of the Senate Republican Caucus.

And a "political consultant" for the Senate Republican Caucus now tells the Plain Dealer they did it all to try and suppress voters expected to come out for John Kerry.

Got that straight?