http://www.newsobserver.com/politics/story/1287865.htmlRALEIGH - The famous -- or infamous, depending on your point of view -- "godless" TV commercial in North Carolina's campaign for the U.S. Senate almost didn't happen.
For starters, Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole's campaign didn't think Democratic challenger Kay Hagan would follow through with plans to attend a Boston fundraiser hosted by a couple known for promoting atheist causes. Certainly not after the Dole campaign had sent out a news release attacking Hagan for even scheduling such an event.
Even then, Dole's campaign thought it would run such an ad only as a last resort. And then it would be the mildest version of the ad.
So says Fred Davis, the Hollywood-based media consultant who produced the ad, which became one of the most discussed TV commercials in the nation during the past election.
Critics of the ad from the right and the left accused Dole of questioning Hagan's faith. Hagan, a Sunday school teacher and elder in her Presbyterian church in Greensboro, called the ad "despicable" and ran her own ad accusing Dole of "bearing false witness against fellow Christians."
But Davis insists the commercial was not designed to question Hagan's faith. He said it was about her decision to attend the fundraiser.
"It was about her judgment," Davis said in a telephone interview last week. "I never questioned her faith. A lot of people questioned that in hindsight. But that's not the point."
The "godless" ad is likely to be remembered as one of North Carolina's most famous TV political commercials, joining the likes of Sen. Jesse Helms' "white hands" ad in 1990, which said that his black opponent, Harvey Gantt, favored racial quotas. Or the 1984 Jim Hunt ad featuring gun shots and photographs of dead bodies, which tied Helms to right-wing death squads in El Salvador.
In postelection interviews, Dole campaign advisers said the genesis of the commercial occurred when a Dole campaign researcher spotted a posting on a liberal fundraising Web site, ActBlue, announcing a Hagan fundraiser at the Boston home of Woody Kaplan and Wendy Kaminer. Further checking revealed that both were leaders in the Secular Coalition of America, which advocates for atheists and humanists in public policy. Kaplan sits on the advisory board of the Godless American PAC, which advocates for nonbelievers.
The Dole campaign issued a news release in August saying Hagan's plans to attend the fundraiser showed she was "a Trojan horse for a long list of wacky left-wing outside groups."
After Dole's criticism, Kaplan and Kaminer's names were removed from the ActBlue invitation. Among the 10 chairmen/ chairwomen of the fundraiser was U.S. Sen. John Kerry.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee sent a crew to Boston to film the event in case Hagan showed up.
"We thought no way would she actually show up," Davis said. Hagan, a state senator from Greensboro, has declined to say why she decided to attend the fundraiser.
That same evening, Sept. 15, Dole was attending a "God and Country" rally in New Bern sponsored by the Christian Coalition.
Film held for weeksThe Dole campaign chose not to use footage from the Boston fundraiser right away. They realized that dealing with religion was an incendiary issue that could backfire.
"It's not the kind of thing that would be your first choice to mold your campaign around," Davis said.
Davis, a nationally known media consultant who did work for GOP presidential candidate John McCain, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and many other Republicans, is no stranger to controversial ads. It was Davis who made the ad comparing Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama to celebrities Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. In 2002, Davis helped elect Republican Sonny Perdue governor of Georgia by casting Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes as a giant rat casting his shadow over the state.