Analysis: Bucks County, PA ads filled with sketchy sourcing on incendiary political mailers

The imposing John Fetterman wears a black jacket and a knowing smirk as he appears on the campaign flyer next to an assortment of powders, pills, needles and vials. He has the look of a man who'd do more than legalize cannabis. He appears ready to peddle heroin on the streets of Kensington himself.

Meanwhile it seems like Ashley Ehasz is running for Gotham City District Attorney. She's channeling Batman villain Two-Face on a campaign flyer. A blurry, black-and-white photo of the right side of her face is skillfully aligned with a grotesquely distorted image of the left side of Nancy Pelosi's face. In case the implication wasn't clear, the flyer's text reads "Ehasz/Pelosi Disaster for our community."

Then there's the mailer of an oversized image of Joe Hogan's head on the body of a suit-wearing shyster carrying a briefcase full of Benjamins he'll no doubt be slipping the CEO of some already-wealthy corporation. Not to be outdone, his opponent Mark Moffa turns up on a different flyer holding a cardboard sign that reads "defund the police."

Mailboxes around Bucks County will need a good delousing after Tuesday's general election, which will mercifully mark the end of a campaign season that plumbed new depths for negative advertising. We've seen them before — the grainy, unflattering black-and-white photos, juxtaposed with incendiary messaging delivered in fiery red and orange text above telltale disclaimers — "not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee."

Negative ads like these work. If they didn't, the political action and state party committees wouldn't bother with them. And they work particularly well with the segment of the voting public that doesn't closely follow politics, doesn't strictly align with a particular political party and, frankly, doesn't have the time or the means to do a lot of independent candidate research before casting their ballots on Election Day.

Those voters might draw false comfort from the flyers' sourcing footnotes, which seek to give inflammatory claims an air of legitimacy. But, be warned, many of those footnotes don't actually authenticate the flyers' claims. It's almost as though the PACs put them there knowing full well that very few undecided voters will invest the time it takes to study the source material.

Here are some examples of what such studies yielded this season. To keep the focus on the tactics the PACs employ, the names of the targeted candidates aren't being used.

Claims to defund education and total abortion bans unfounded

Flyers accused one candidate for state office of voting to "defund our schools," giving "himself a pay raise" and supporting a "total ban on abortion with zero exceptions."

A check of the sourcing showed that the "defund our schools" claim was based on the candidate casting a vote in favor of the 2011-2012 state budget. That budget reduced basic education funding by $550 million in light of a $4 billion budget deficit and, importantly, the loss of federal stimulus money that the Rendell administration had used to enhance basic education subsidies in 2009-10 and 2010-11. That 2011-12 budget did deal a blow to public education, but it wasn't a vote to "defund our schools."

The pay raise claim is rooted in the candidate's vote in favor of this year's state budget. While the raise was in the budget, state House and Senate lawmakers receive an annual cost-of-living salary bump. They don't have to figure out the size of their own pay increases and vote on them. Since the raises are tied in part to inflation, they'll be larger than usual next year.

The claim that the candidate supported a total ban on abortion with zero exceptions stems from the candidate's affirmative vote on Senate Bill 106. The bill does not ban abortion with zero exceptions. It proposes an amendment to the state Constitution, which must be approved by the voters in a referendum. The amendment stipulates that the state Constitution "does not grant the right to taxpayer funded abortion or any other right related to abortion." The amendment neither upholds nor outlaws abortion and it does not get into granular discussions about exceptions for rape, incest and the health of the mother.

Defund the police in Bucks County? Claims don't check out

Lots of state and federal candidates in Bucks County are accused of wanting to "defund the police" in mailers.

A candidate for federal office has been criticized for "being funded by fringe-left donors who want to defund our police." The flyer, paid for by the Republican Federal Committee of Pennsylvania, gets to make that statement because the candidate was endorsed by NARAL Pro-Choice America, which while predominantly advocating for reproductive freedom, also has a position statement on its website supporting the demands of the Movement for Black Lives, "including defunding the police and investing in Black communities."

Connecting candidates, even peripherally, to Black Lives Matter and statements about defunding the police has been a hallmark of right-leaning political action committees since the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

The Republican Party of Pennsylvania hung the "defund the police" albatross on one state House candidate because the candidate had signed the progressive "Future Now Pledge." According to its website, The Future Now "umbrella includes The States Project, The Lawmaker Network, and The PAC for America’s Future."

While the pledge has been removed from the organization's website, an archived copy shows that signers have agreed to advocate for seven boilerplate progressive goals — good jobs, affordable quality healthcare, investing in children, clean air, water and energy, etc. The pledge doesn't mention "defund the police" or contain any references to law enforcement. But the state GOP makes the connection because elsewhere on The Future Now website, the group calls for "reinvesting policing savings in community-based and prevention programs."

Claims, sourcing don't add up on abortion mailer

Candidate "supports banning abortion, just like Republican candidate for governor Doug Mastriano."

A Pennsylvania Democratic Party flyer goes out of its way to connect a federal candidate with gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano but it's a false equivalency. The flyer references a vote on U.S. House Resolution 36 of the 2017-18 legislative session.

The candidate voted yes on HR 36, which would have made it a crime to perform an abortion at 20 weeks or later, but the legislation provided exceptions to save the life of the mother and in cases of rape and incest.

One of the flyer's sources is the GOP Primary Debate for governor, during which Mastriano says he doesn't support those exceptions.

From Twitter to a mailer

Candidate for federal office a pusher of heroin injection sites

The conservative American Leadership Action PAC assailed a candidate with claims that he wants to "put heroin injections sites in our neighborhoods," citing a 2020 tweet. The tweet read "Harm reduction reduces harm 100%" and referred to a CBS Philadelphia story about a judge clearing the way for a supervised injection site to open in Philadelphia."

The story says nothing about heroin. Neither does the candidate's tweet.

"Extremists" and "fringe" candidates abound

Both progressive and conservative-funded mailers are making liberal use of characterizing terms like "fringe," "radical" and "extreme" to frighten voters in purple Bucks County.

The conservative "Americans for Prosperity Action" accused one statewide candidate of admitting that "Pennsylvania families would pay the price for his radical climate agenda."

The claim is attributed to a 2009 appearance by the candidate on WCFN's Morning Show and a discussion of cap-and-trade policies supported by then-President Barack Obama as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by about 15%. The candidate, discussing Obama's plan, said "There'll be some costs involved but the study released indicated it'd be $100 per year per family…Over the long term this bill will actually drive down the cost of energy by making things more efficient but also in taking our environment into consideration as well." The $100-figure appears to have come from a study by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The Pennsylvania Democratic Party, in a mailer, claimed that "extremists" like one particular state House candidate "still want to cut corporate taxes," and referenced news stories that appeared in The Morning Call newspaper and on the Pennsylvania Capital Star website. Neither story about the corporate tax cut included in the most-recent Pennsylvania budget mentioned the state House candidate the flyer targeted.

This article originally appeared on The Intelligencer: View incendiary campaign literature with skepticism — or ignore it