Tim Kiska: Hoekstra Ad Draws Fire ... From Just About Everywhere
By Tim Kiska
U.S. Senate hopeful Pete Hoekstra's Super Bowl ad is drawing attention. Just not the kind, perhaps, that he had hoped.
The ad features a woman of Asian descent thanking Debbie "Spend-it-now" for her help in driving up what is presumably the Chinese economy.
"Thank you Michigan Senator Debbie Spend-it-now. Debbie spends so much American money," she says. "You borrow more and more from us. Your economy get very weak. Ours get very good. We take your jobs. Thank you Debbie Spend-it-now."
The reaction was fast, furious and from varying quarters — including a few unlikely places.
Nick DeLeeuw, a conservative activist from the western part of the state, wrote that: "Racism and xenophobia aren't any way to get things done."
The "comments" section on the ad on YouTube has been disabled. And a note on YouTube said the ad would likely be removed.
But the reactions before the comments were disabled: Yikes.
"That's the cutest darn crass, racial stereotype I ever saw," one person wrote.
Another was less subtle. "What a [explitive] racist [explitive]."
The Democratic response, also on YouTube, argued that Hoekstra was no slouch in the spending category.
That, of course, is what some of his Republican opponents are saying about Hoekstra.
Gary Glenn, for instance, knocked Hoekstra for voting on the Wall Street bailout, which the Dems noted, as well.
Clark Durant, another of Hoekstra's opponents, released a letter late Monday morning arguing that "In point of fact, he (Hoekstra), too, is the big government spender!"
At this point, a group of Detroit-area ministers is calling on Hoekstra to disavow the ad.
Hoekstra, speaking with reporters Monday morning, argued that the ad certainly "jump started" the debate on spending.
"We knew we were taking an aggressive approach on this," he said. "But this is a time where the people in Michigan and across the country are fed up with the spending, and we wanted to capture that frustration that they had with Washington, D.C."
Hoekstra said the ad was meant to be "satirical" and was only offensive to someone like Debbie Stabenow.
