Analysis
This story is based upon a flyer that was circulated by the State Republican Party with negative claims directed at the Democratic candidate Robert Dean. The story presents the claims in the flyer and a lengthy retelling of the claims made that were already reported on in the Press on March 24. The article cites GOP candidate Tim Doyle, Robert Dean, a resident of the district who received the flyer, and a spokesperson for the Republican State Party. The story also cites Joe Jones with Strategic Communications Group, who has numerous GOP candidates as clients. At the end of the story, there is mention of a negative campaign against Doyle that originated with the Coalition for Progress, who the article claims is funded by Kalamazoo billionaire Jon Stryker.
Article Text
A brochure for Republican candidate Tim Doyle includes a picture of Joe Jones.
But Jones decries the flier – an attack piece from the state Republican Party on Doyle’s Democratic opponent, the Rev. Robert Dean – as “foolish” and “hitting below the belt.”
“I am totally appalled with this latest foolishness that has come down from the folks at the state level,” Jones said. “It doesn’t match up with who I am, who Tim is or who Reverend Dean is….Neither of them wants anything to do with something that has the appearance of hitting below the belt, but that’s what this does.”
Jones isn’t the only one upset by the campaign piece, which some view as having racist undertones. Doyle sent a letter to state party leaders asking they ‘cease and desist’ the negative attacks, which he characterized as inappropriate and unnecessary.
Dean doesn’t think that’s enough. He angrily denounced the ads, and said they show a lack of leadership by Doyle. “If you can’t control it now, and they’re the ones supporting you, you’re just going to be a puppet,” Dean said. “It’s going to be the same old status quo.”
Dean and Doyle are battling to represent the state House district being vacated by term-limited Republican Rep. Jerry Kooiman. The district, one of the most competitive in the state, covers the northeast and southeast parts of Grand Rapids.
The mailers, which started arriving at thousands of homes this week, depict Jones, a friend of Dean’s and an employee pf a firm working for the Doyle campaign, on one page shaking Doyle’s hand.
The next image shows a low-quality, dark picture of Dean. The test lambastes the former Grand Rapids city commissioner and Grand Rapids Public Schools Board of Education president as a career politician with a “troubling history of run-ins with the law and taking advantage of taxpayers.”
In 1976, Dean was arrested and charged with resisting a police officer in a picket line incident at Butternut Bakeries, where he participated in a three-month long strike. He was fined $150, according to state police records.
In 1984, Dean pleaded guilty to welfare fraud in Grand Rapids District Court. He was charged with failing to disclose his unemployment checks while he and his wife were getting welfare benefits three years earlier. Dean pleaded guilty and repaid $528 to the Kent County Department of Social Services. He also paid $270 in fines and court costs, according to court records.
Dean voluntarily disclosed his scrapes with the law in March in an effort to short-circuit political attacks. He said he has used his personal struggles to grow and never hid them, often using them as lessons to students.
Joel Carpenter, who lives in the district, was shocked by the negative campaign pieces he received.
“I think the thing that bothered me the most were the visuals, especially how you depict the rev. Robert Dean,” said Carpenter, a former provost at Calvin College. “You turn him into a shadowy and sinister figure. That’s outrageous. I thought it was racist.”
Carpenter said the piece turned him off to Doyle, whom he had been inclined to support. “It alleviates my concerns to hear that Mr. Doyle denounces it, too” Carpenter added.
The photo of Jones used by the state party has been part of Doyle-approved literature, but was used without permission, Jones said. He said he didn’t know how the state party got hold of it.
He supports Doyle and is partner in Strategic Communications Group, a marketing and public relations firm working on the campaign.
The flier is one of three the party issued in recent days questioning Dean’s integrity. A second piece contrasts Doyle as a “tough prosecutor” with “integrity” with Dean, a “career politician with a criminal past.” The third impugns Dean’s profile credentials. Dean and Doyle are considered “qualified” candidates by Right to Life of Michigan.
State Republican Party Executive Jeff Timmer said he pushed the mailings because Democratic candidates have closed ground in recent elections in the district.
“It’s a targeted seat and this is a very legitimate issue,” he said. “Elections are about character and the choice in this one is very stark.”
Doyle was the subject of a negative automated call placed last month and funded by the Coalition for Progress, funded by liberal Kalamazoo billionaire Jon Stryker.
A recording of the call was kept by the Doyle campaign. The woman speaking in the message denounced “Republicans in the Legislature that give tax breaks to big corporations that move our jobs to China and move their headquarters off shore.” She went on to say, “That’s why I’m moving Michigan forward by voting against Tim Doyle in November.” Dean was unaware of the call and would have stopped it had he known about it ahead of time, he said.
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