Sex, lies and DUIs: GOP dumps oppo on Dem House hopefuls

Sex, lies and DUIs: GOP dumps oppo on Dem House hopefuls
Republican ads are getting personal in the fight for the House majority.

By ELENA SCHNEIDER 08/20/2

Dramatized police dispatch calls of a DUI arrest. Allegations of sexual harassment. Court filings reviewing “failed” business investments.

Those are attacks leveled against Democratic congressional candidates in a new Republican ad campaign in recent days — part of a growing effort to personalize the midterm elections and disqualify individual Democratic hopefuls early in a bid to save the Republican House majority.


National trends are driving the general direction of the 2018 midterms, fueled by strong feelings about health care, taxes, President Donald Trump and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. But with so many first-time candidates running on the Democratic side — without the baggage of legislative voting records or controversial positions adopted over a long public career — and the political environment tilting toward them, GOP efforts to keep them out of the House may hinge on specific personal critiques, vetting them publicly for the first time.

That’s how Congressional Leadership Fund, the Republican super PAC, is starting its campaign against Democrat Sean Casten in Illinois, blasting him for “mismanagement, fraud, greed” at his company in a TV ad released Wednesday. (Casten’s campaign called it “false attacks” in a statement.) The group is also hammering Randy Bryce, the Democratic nominee in Speaker Paul Ryan’s district, over a drunk driving arrest.

And there's more to come: A review of research materials collected by the National Republican Congressional Committee shows that the campaign committee plans to litigate many more Democrats' professional history, including digging through client and case histories of a half-dozen attorneys running in top battleground districts. CLF set up its own in-house research unit, a first for the group this cycle as it seeks to dig up its own dirt on Senate and House candidates.

“The fact is that the treasure trove of research books on these Democratic candidates is amazing,” said Guy Harrison, a Republican consultant who led the NRCC during the 2010 and 2012 cycles. “It’s probably the deepest and most wacky I’ve ever seen in a cycle.”


https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/20/house-republicans-oppo-research-788468
“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” Harrison added.