The Massachusetts Democratic Party sent out a mailer today that claims Scott Brown wants hospitals to turn away all rape victims in the state:
“1,736 WOMEN WERE RAPED IN MASSACHUSETTS IN 2008. SCOTT BROWN WANTS HOSPITALS TO TURN THEM ALL AWAY.”
Even as negative advertising goes, that's awful, especially given the distortion of the facts necessary to suggest it.
The flier seems to reference and exaggerate to a desperate degree, Brown's work for a "conscience clause" to a 2005 bill that required all ERs to provide the morning-after pill to rape victims. His amendment would have exempted individual health-care providers with religious objections from the rule. But after his amendment did not pass, Brown voted for the underlying bill. (Greg Sargent notes that even Martha Coakley's own web site admits this now-inconvenient fact.)
Brown's counsel Dan Winslow is holding a 4 p.m. media availablity to announce legal action over the flier:
“The campaign’s rhetoric has gone from negative to malicious,” Massachusetts Republican party spokeswoman Tarah Donoghue told The Daily Caller from Brown’s weekend bus tour Saturday. “It’s outright offensive and it’s a distortion of Scott Brown’s record.”
Donoghue said Massachusetts GOP chairwoman Jennifer Nassour will also attend Saturday’s announcements at the state GOP headquarters. The Coakley campaign did not immediately return requests for comment.
Kathryn Jean Lopez has the history of this Coakley attack, which is getting less and less subtle by the day, and Brown's good response to it. She's likely stepping up the attack precisely because polling shows that Brown, defended competently by his daughters (one of the a popular figure and "American Idol" alum) against Coakley's accusations, is staying close to the Democrat among women voters.
Although the nastiest, the rape flier isn't the only one getting Democrats in legal trouble today. UPS is up in arms about a Democratic flier that plays off its "What can brown do for you?" ad campaign with a "What can Brown do to you?" negative mailer:
Atlanta-based United Parcel Service, known for its ubiquitous brown trucks, demanded yesterday that the Massachusetts Democratic Party, which is listed as paying for the pamphlet, stop distributing it.
The mailer asks “What can Brown do to you?” It shows Scott Brown dressed up as a UPS driver and says, “He can reward corporations that ship your job overseas just like George W. Bush.”
Meanwhile, Brown is on the trail in his "People's Seat" bus, and says he's not worried about Obama's Sunday visit.
Here's a giant round-up of today's Massachusetts news.
