That commercial, however, runs counter to an ad for his Republican opponent, funeral director K.L. Brown, that starts with the question: “Why is Ricky Whaley running a negative campaign against K.L. Brown?”
Both candidates claim the other is running a negative campaign, and the truth might depend on the source of the ad and the source’s definition of negative.
Whaley, a Democrat, Carol Hagan, an independent, and Brown are running for the Alabama House of Representatives seat left vacant when Rep. Lea Fite died in October. The special general election is Feb. 16.
Brown and Whaley both said they’d run a clean race but have since engaged in a battle of the ads.
“He calls me ‘liberal Ricky Whaley,’” Whaley said. “The definition of a liberal is a person who helps people. They mean it to imply that I’m for things that are controversial, like gaming and abortion. I don’t gamble, and I’m opposed to abortion.”
When asked to identify negative campaigning from his opponent, Brown said Whaley’s camp published an eight-page political mailer that included on the back a list comparing the two candidates.
“It lists all of his accolades, but when it lists my qualifications, mine are slim,” Brown said. “It was nothing negative, but a lot of information was omitted.”
When pressed further, Brown said Whaley was saying negative things about him in the community, but Brown didn’t want to identify his sources.
Hagan said she has a couple of commercials on WJXS TV-24, but they don’t mention her opponents. She has her own take on Brown’s and Whaley’s ads.
“I’m thrilled to death that they’re running each other down,” she said by phone Wednesday. “That makes people not want to vote for either of them.”
Commercial cash
Advertising accounts for much of the spending for both candidates.
According to the latest campaign finance reports on the Secretary of State’s Web site, Brown has spent just less than $15,000 on items categorized as advertising out of $21,526 in total expenditures. Whaley has spent a little more than $9,000 on advertising out of the total $22,553 he’s spent so far.
More of Brown’s ad dollars went to The Anniston Star — $5,925 — than to any other recipient, according to the reports. The largest recipient of Whaley’s ad dollars was Vinyl Tech Signs, a national company with a location in Prattville.
Whaley’s TV commercials for the most part are testimonials from residents pointing out his electability. Whaley said one ad mentioning the “Birmingham big wigs and country club crowd” refers not to Brown but to the Alabama Republican Party, which appears to be responsible for all of Brown’s commercials.
“It’s frustrating to run a campaign against Birmingham,” Whaley said.
Whaley’s ads are “paid for by the Friends of Whaley Campaign,” which lists 412 Ninth Ave., Jacksonville, as its headquarters. The ads on Brown’s Web site say they are “paid for by the Alabama Republican Party” and lists P.O. Box 55628, Birmingham, as the address.
“Brown never speaks (in the ads),” Whaley said. “The Birmingham people are the ones who are doing it all. It is what it is. I’m running my campaign myself.”
For his part, Brown said he wasn’t responsible for any negative campaigning.
“I don’t always know what’s coming out of the Republican Party,” he said. “There have been some (mailers) in print that I didn’t see before they hit mailboxes that were pretty negative. I told them I didn’t like that kind of ad, and I think they’ve backed off since then.”
Brown did say he thinks Whaley would be a liberal representative in Montgomery.
“There is such a thing as a conservative Democrat,” he said, “but when you take that much special interest money, they’re gonna control you.”
Purse strings
Campaign finance reports show Whaley has received several contributions from individuals and political action committees connected to the Alabama Education Association, including a one-time donation of $25,000 from A-VOTE, the AEA’s political action committee, and an individual donation of $1,000 from AEA Executive Secretary Paul Hubbert.
Three other PACs that contributed to Whaley show Joe Cottle, AEA’s director of government relations, as their chairman.
Whaley, a veteran educator at Jacksonville High School, said those donations are a show of support from his colleagues.
“I’m taking that from my fellow teachers,” he said. “If I didn’t have the endorsement of my colleagues, what would you think of my ability?”
Philip Bryan, communications director for the state Republican Party, said anyone who doesn’t understand AEA and Hubbert’s power in the Statehouse doesn’t know much about Montgomery.
“(Whaley) has taken tens of thousands of dollars from Paul Hubbert,” Bryan said, indicating it would be difficult for Whaley to be his own man in Montgomery.
Whaley said he’s not the candidate whose campaign is not under his control.
“I want people to know I’m running my own campaign,” he said. “Mr. Brown’s not running his campaign. If he’s not the one representing District 40 in the campaign, how’s he going to be the one representing the district in Montgomery?”
In an e-mail response, Bryan insisted that Brown is in control of his own campaign.
“It is not surprising that Mr. Whaley doesn’t like us informing voters of the fact that he said he would raise taxes, or that the majority of his funding comes from a liberal special interest group,” the e-mail reads. “The fact that we send out a mail piece or create a television spot outlining the difference in the candidates, doesn’t constitute being negative and certainly doesn’t mean K. L. Brown isn’t in control of his campaign.”
Whaley said he has refused the Alabama Democratic Party’s urgings to fire back at Brown’s “negative ads.”
Alabama Democratic Party Chairman Joe Turnham confirmed as much in a phone conversation Tuesday.
“You normally respond in-kind to negative attacks,” he said. “We talked about it, but Mr. Whaley is the CEO of his campaign, and he wants to be true to his principles and take the high road.”
Just the facts
Bryan said it’s not negative to point out an opponent’s flaws. He pointed, for instance, to an ad saying Whaley wants to raise taxes. What Whaley has said is that he wants to close tax loopholes for large corporations.
“That’s raising taxes on businesses,” Bryan said. “He’s in direct contrast with conservative voters in the district.”
In response, Whaley said closing those loopholes will force big businesses to compete more fairly with small businesses.
“That’s not raising taxes. That’s getting the big boys to pay their fair share,” he said. “That makes an even playing field for the small businessman that’s paying his taxes.”
None of this even scratches the surface of how one camp accuses the other of filing late finance reports, or the other camp making claims about stolen campaign signs, or how both camps accuse the other of having false claims in their campaign literature.
The intense back-and-forth at the local and state levels of this race speaks to the importance of the winner being positioned to run in November as an incumbent rather than a newcomer.
Neither man, however, wants political ambition to define them.
“(The negative ads) are not my comments. That’s the Republican Party,” Brown said. “I’ve known Ricky for years, his wife and his family. I’m not going to make negative comments about them.”
Whaley said he intends to keep the race clean by keeping outside negative influences at bay.
“Whether I win or not, I’m going to know I acted right in front of my kids and my students,” he said. “I listen to my mother, and she keeps telling me to out-nice ’em.”
Reach Managing Editor Anthony Cook at 256-235-3558.
