Although Tuesday's election witnessed the defeat of state Issues 2-5, some of the tactics used by opponents to detract from the issues during the buildup to the election remain questionable.
Opposition groups distributed fliers to churches that singled out supporters of the issues as radical anti-family activists. The issues in question were intended for election reform, and to attempt to cast them as threats to family values is blatantly dishonest. It is unclear how many churches those fliers were distributed to, but their effect on the outcome of voting remains debatable. That smear campaign was outright deception, an attempt to elicit an emotional reaction from Ohio voters. Such duplicitous efforts should be ignored in the future, and the state should pursue actions, if any are possible, to penalize the distributors of that propaganda.
Republican-led opposition groups have abused the traditional association between the Republican Party and the preservation of family values. The recent ad campaign seems to send one strong message: anything supported by liberals will erode family values. The issues at hand concerned such things as lowering campaign-contribution limits and changing the way congressional districts are determined. Where questions of family values fall into those issues is anyone's guess. Clearly, the deceptive tactics were aimed at making voters feel guilty if they supported the state issues. In the future, voters must examine the actual content of issues and determine if they really have anything to do with what partisan ads say.
The recent propaganda doubtlessly was an attempt to garner a purely emotional reaction from a loyal conservative base. However, a certain degree of complicity is required for voters to go along with such rhetoric. A brief perusal of the state issues would show that none of them concern family values or the lack thereof in any way. The fact that opposing groups would make such lies is sad. If voters were deceived by it, that is sadder still.
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Right-wing fliers misleading
