Udall's Microbus; Update: Where there's smoke ...?

Mark Udall has demanded that television stations in Colorado pull an advertisement skewering his votes on troop funding and a “Department of Peace”. Freedoms Watch produced this attack ad that uses an old VW microbus to paint Udall as an aging hippie more concerned with Flower Power than with American military power in a time of war. And at the end, it hints at other plant life than flowers:

Mark Udall is not a happy camper, and Freedom’s Watch is taking all the credit. As Josh wrote yesterday, the conservative organization is up with a new ad slamming the Democratic Senate candidate for voting for a Department of Peace.

An attorney representing Udall’s campaign fired off a letter to at least two television stations in Denver yesterday demanding that the ad, which shows an aging hippie bragging about the legislation, originally sponsored by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, near his beat up Volkswagen van, be yanked from the airwaves.

“The advertisement is inappropriate, irresponsible and crosses a clear line,” attorney Douglas Friednash writes in the cease and desist letter to KUSA and KTFD general manager Mark Cornetta. “Because Freedom [sic] Watch does not let the facts get in the way, this does not provide you with the ability to ignore them and the obvious legal issues created by this advertisement.”

Uppermost on Friednash’s mind is the implication that Udall is somehow associated with drugs. The ad shows the hippie opening the door of his van before quickly shutting it to prevent the escape of a plume of smoke (Clearly intended to set off some alarm bells with voters, though a Freedom’s Watch spokesman told the Denver Post, “You know, it could just be an engine overheating.” Right.)

The last few seconds of the ad do cross the line. I don’t know what Udall’s position on marijuana legalization is, but I’d bet that Freedoms Watch doesn’t know, either. Clearly an implication is made with that, and even though it’s funny, it isn’t really fair, either.

Otherwise, though, this ad hits the mark. Udall put himself on the wrong side of funding the troops, and made himself into a disciple of Dennis Kucinich with the Department of Peace nonsense. In the first place, we already have an entire bureaucracy dedicated to diplomacy: State. Any “studies” or “programs” outside of that to promote Udall’s version of the Age of Aquarius can get private funding — or stay in Academia, where these efforts have no trouble finding funding.

Ridicule, when properly applied, can have devastating results. Udall’s campaign realizes how effective this ad is, and wants it pulled — but not for misrepresenting his position on the main points, but because of a puff of smoke at the end. Cut the smoke and run the ad on wide release.

Update: Well, in checking Udall’s record on marijuana legalization, perhaps the final moments aren’t quite as unfair as Udall claims:

Udall co-sponsored the States’ Rights to Medical Marijuana Act:

Title: To provide for the medical use of marijuana in accordance with the laws of the various States. Summary: Transfers marijuana from schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act to schedule II of such Act. Declares that, in a State in which marijuana may be prescribed or recommended by a physician for medical use under applicable State law, no provision of the Controlled Substances Act shall prohibit or otherwise restrict:

• the prescription or recommendation of marijuana by a physician for medical use;
• an individual from obtaining and using marijuana from a physician’s prescription or recommendation of marijuana for medical use; or
• a pharmacy from obtaining and holding marijuana for the prescription or recommendation of marijuana by a physician for medical use under applicable State law.
• Prohibits any provision of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act from prohibiting or restricting a State entity from producing or distributing marijuana for the purpose of its distribution for prescription or recommendation by a physician in a State in which marijuana may be prescribed by a physician for medical use.

Udall gets a +20 from NORML, which puts him in the most-favored position for the advocates of normalization.