Issue Ads Step Up Candidates’ Mudslinging Term Limits Ads Continue Assault When Cash-Poor Challenger Can’T

FROM FOR THE RECORD (Friday, September 11, 1998): Correction Headline wrong: A headline on Thursday’s Page B1 article on campaign ads for Eastern Washington’s congressional race mischaracterized the ads and the debate surrounding them. The candidates, George Nethercutt and Brad Lyons, disputed each other’s ads, but did not engage in “mudslinging.”

Old allegations and new commercials are part of an escalating ad war in Eastern Washington’s congressional race.

It’s a campaign in which actors clad in wolf and sheep costumes vie for air time with the incumbent congressman’s senior citizen mom and teenage son. Meanwhile, a national group that supported George Nethercutt in 1994 is running full-page ads against him now.

Neither Nethercutt, the two-term Republican, nor Democrat Brad Lyons, an Odessa farmer and businessman, has an opponent in the primary. They share next Tuesday’s ballot with John Beale from the American Heritage Party.

With plenty of money - Nethercutt had raised more than $430,000 by mid-year, compared with about $45,000 for Lyons - the incumbent opened his television campaign with an upbeat commercial that recalled his 1994 upset victory over then-Speaker Tom Foley.

“Four years ago, we made a little history here,” said Nethercutt, standing in front of his Spokane home.

The Lyons campaign quickly accused Nethercutt of “trashing” Foley, even though the ad never mentioned the former speaker’s name.

The complaint was a stretch, because the race did, in fact, make history: A sitting speaker had not lost since before the Civil War.

Lyons used the “trashing Tom Foley” phrase in his commercial, which features a costumed sheep and wolf as Nethercutt’s alter egos. The ad also resurrected a familiar refrain from the 1996 campaign, criticizing an unsuccessful 1995 Republican plan to change Medicare.

Nethercutt enlisted his 14-year-old son, Elliott, and his mother, Nancy, as co-stars in his defense of his Social Security positions.

Lyons is strapped for cash for a commercial rebuttal, but another group is not. U.S. Term Limits is sponsoring independent “issue” ads in newspapers and on television as part of a campaign to warn candidates against waffling on their pledges to voluntarily limit how long they would serve.

When Nethercutt was elected in 1994, a new state law limited U.S. representatives to three terms. He criticized Foley for challenging that law in court, and said he would only serve three terms.

The court struck down term limits and Nethercutt has since said he might seek a fourth term, if voters urge him.

The Washington, D.C., group purchased a full-page ad in The Spokesman-Review on Wednesday and began running television commercials attacking Nethercutt for refusing to sign a “pledge” not to seek more than three terms in the House. The newspaper ad likens Nethercutt to President Clinton with a headline “Do these two men share something personal?”

Dale Neugebauer, Nethercutt’s campaign manager, said the ad is “misleading” and the group seems bent on attacking someone who regularly supports term limits measures in Congress.

“He hasn’t broken a pledge, he’s only served two terms,” Neugebauer said. Whether Nethercutt will run for a fourth term is a question for the year 2000 - if he wins this year.

The ad was originally rejected by the newspaper, because it was inaccurate, said Shaun O’L. Higgins, the newspaper’s director of sales and marketing. The ad initially said Nethercutt “would not honor his word.” The promise was three terms, and this would be the third, Higgins said.

The group then changed the ad to say Nethercutt “has refused … to affirm his word,” which was acceptable and a fair question to raise in this election, Higgins said.

It also attempts to turn Nethercutt’s words back on him, using comments the congressman made after President Clinton finally admitted an “inappropriate relationship” with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

“Your word is your bond, whether it’s in public life or private life,” Nethercutt said in calling for Clinton’s resignation.

These sidebars appeared with the story: NETHERCUTT CALLS LYONS AD ‘MISLEADING’ The ad: “Howling,” a 30-second television commercial for Democrat Brad Lyons, uses costumed characters to accuse incumbent Republican Rep. George Nethercutt of being a wolf in sheep’s clothing, saying one thing and doing the opposite on issues such as Social Security, health insurance reform and term limits. Opponent’s reaction: Nethercutt calls the ad “negative and misleading” and says that the allegations about Medicare are resurrected from the 1996 campaign. He responded with a commercial on Social Security. Campaign response: Lyons says the reference to Social Security includes both a 1995 vote on the budget and a 1998 vote that he contends would allow using part of the projected surplus for tax cuts. Analysis: The ad clearly tries to reduce complex issues to cartoon-like simplicity. The Medicare-taxes debate was central to the 1996 campaign and did revolve around the definition of the word “cut.” In 1995, Republicans proposed, but did not ultimately pass, a budget that restricted the growth in Medicare by about $270 billion. The GOP said that’s not a cut because the amount of money would just grow more slowly; Democrats said it was because people on the program would pay more out of pocket. The ad doesn’t say that the year after the election, Congress and Clinton agreed on a way to reduce the growth of Medicare costs by $115 billion, which no one has called a cut. It is correct that Nethercutt voted against a Democratic plan for health insurance reform; but the ad doesn’t mention that he voted for the Republican plan. The term limits charge is true, albeit premature: Nethercutt has said he might run for a fourth term, but this would be only his third.

NETHERCUTT, LYONS TRADE SOCIAL SECURITY BLOWS The ad: “Social Security” is Rep. George Nethercutt’s response to the Brad Lyons ad accusing him of “threatening Social Security.” It features Nethercutt sitting on a step with his son, Elliott, and his mother, Nancy, to illustrate different problems with the nation’s pension system. “I favor locking up Social Security funds so they can be used only to pay Social Security benefits and not for anything else,” he says. Opponent’s reaction: Democrat Lyons calls the ad an attempt to mislead seniors and “abuse their trust.” A GOP tax cut proposal that Nethercutt co-sponsored this summer would have “used the new Social Security surplus” for a tax cut for the rich, Lyons said. Campaign response: Nethercutt says it was Lyons who misled voters with his ad, and this one sets the record straight by explaining his position on Social Security. Analysis: The ad follows a tradition of Nethercutt using his family to personalize campaign commercials. It rebuts the Lyons ad, but also confuses the issue. The federal government routinely borrows from and repays the Social Security trust fund, which isn’t projected to run a deficit for about 35 years. “Locking up” the fund could be interpreted to mean that money couldn’t be lent for any purpose, couldn’t earn interest and would lose money relative to inflation. Lyons is misstating the bill Nethercutt co-sponsored. It’s a capital gains tax cut, which supporters say would increase tax revenue and opponents say would cost the U.S. Treasury money. The bill itself is in committee, so neither side can be proved right. If opponents are correct, the losses would cut into the budget surplus - which some say should be used to repay money already owed to the Social Security trust fund - not the trust fund’s surplus.