The first complaint about an attack ad by Michigan Democrats against 104th Candidate Larry Inman comes from where?

A political attack television ad aired in the 104th district (which covers Grand Traverse County in its entirety)  is drawing an immediate call for its removal. Not from candidate Inman, but by his opponent.

An advertisement that suggests Republican Larry Inman is out of touch, voted for tuition increases as a university trustee, supports higher taxes, and is guilty by association with those who voted to raise property and pension taxes is under fire by the person who would benefit from such ads. Betsy Coffia, a Democrat who has sworn off PAC money and these types of ads says “We have committed to running a positive campaign, and we consider negative ads to be part of the problem, instead of part of the solution.”

Coffia then goes on to ask supporters to call the Democrat state party directly and ask them to remove the ads.

With regard to denying large donor influence in her campaign, she means business.  An interesting clue that the typical PAC money supporting Democrat candidates recognizes her big money campaign reticence was visible about a month ago in fact. At that time, I took a photo of the local MEA office which had littered its lawn with all manner of political endorsements minus one in particular; Betsy Coffia’s.

To this day, they still have not included her in their desired candidate line-up.  A picture taken yesterday (sorry, not the best) shows a more complete endorsement set by the local MEA office, including union supporting school board candidates, the entire statewide Democrat slate, but STILL minus the 104th district’s Democrat candidate sign.

We should note that the critique by Ms. Coffia of the advertisements on her behalf makes no mention of the substance of the ad except to note that it is a negative ad, and she “is running a positive campaign.”  The ad as seen on one of the local stations is below.

Of course, Ms. Coffia might have missed the beneficial aspect of the poisonous ads on behalf of Wayne Schmidt’s campaign against Greg MacMaster in the 37th Senate District Primary.  In that circus, Schmidt’s opponent MacMaster swore off negative ads and saw a 10 point lead turn into an equally large loss while having his personal life dragged through the mud.  Not pretty, but it worked swimmingly as MacMaster found out.

Coffia’s campaign in this case MIGHT gain some traction from these ads anyhow, because Inman’s record, though embellished a bit in the negative Democrat ads, is sufficiently questionable to make some normal 104th district GOP voters want to throw up their hands in despair.  As for benefit by rebuking the ads, Coffia will likely gain no additional advantage, as those who support her on this issue are platform biased toward her candidacy already.

Her remarks about the ad above are documented in the youtube video below.

For the record, Grand Traverse County is heavily Republican in name. It would be a considerable upset for Inman to lose to Coffia, who has raised from personal donations alone, over $60,000 dollars. The selection of Inman however, has discouraged much of the grassroots.

The sense on the ground is that if the 104th were to go Democrat, it would be in this cycle.

And NOT because of an ad from the Democrat state party.

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