Neff mailer is indefensible

Cynthia Neff’s abhorrent mailer comparing her opponent’s votes to the immorality of a cheating husband cannot go unchallenged.
This is one of the most reprehensible political pieces we’ve seen in a long time.
For those still unaware of the details: Ms. Neff’s campaign sent out a mailing comparing incumbent Rob Bell to a “cheating husband” because he “acts like a nice guy at home” but “cheats on us in Richmond” by voting against, in Ms. Neff’s opinion, the interests of his district. The mailer then lists, in reductionary — if not incendiary — language, some votes she believes are “cheats.”
There are two facets to this mailer, content and tone.
It is the second that causes the most immediate outrage.
Introducing, with a wink and a smirk, the immorality issue is in itself bad enough. There is absolutely no justification for reducing a debate about health care, school funding or any other legitimate issue into a piece of smarmy innuendo about personal morality.
Understand: Ms. Neff is not saying that Rob Bell is a cheating husband; she is saying that he acts like a cheating husband. We get that. But the choice of the words is deliberate and calculated; to make that clear, the mailer carried an image of a bouquet of roses, as if the cheater is coming home begging for forgiveness. There is no missing the implication here, and the implication is indefensible.
In fact, Mr. Bell is widely regarded as an extremely upright and principled individual. The immorality metaphor is doubly inappropriate.
More than inappropriate, it is outrageously inapt. And it is therefore impracticable as a campaign strategy: As could have been expected, the backlash against the over-the-top, below-the-belt attack is turning voters away from the Neff camp.
The second facet of the mailer is worth noting, although it does not plow new ground. That is the recasting of the opponent’s vote record in a manner that is distorting.
This is partly the unfortunate result of trying to reduce complicated politics into catchy soundbites, but it has become a deliberate stratagem bordering on deception that both major parties have practiced.
To take one example from the Neff mailer: the accusation that Mr. Bell voted “to prevent rape victims from getting emergency contraception in the emergency room.”
Well, not exactly. The vote would have allowed any pharmacist, out of conscience, to decline to fill an order for post-coital contraceptive. Some people believe that ending a pregnancy at any stage, even if barely begun, is morally wrong. The vote would have allowed them to decline to participate in something they consider a deep violation of religious faith or conscience.
Might this vote have further victimized rape victims by preventing them from getting a morning-after pill at the emergency room? Possibly so, if the only pharmacist on duty refused under the law to dispense the order.
But let’s debate the issues as they truly are, not as they may be twisted for political purposes.
Indeed, let’s debate the issues, not twist words to malign a candidate’s morality.