Virginia Pol Runs Hitler Ad
Campaign ads by Republican gubernatorial candidate Jerry Kilgore that claim Democrat Tim Kaine is so averse to the death penalty that he would spare even Hitler from execution trivialize the Holocaust and should be withdrawn, Jewish leaders said Friday.
"Mr. Kilgore's willingness to exploit the pain of a group of people like the Jews for his own political gain indicates to me he's willing to do just about anything to get elected," said Rabbi Jack Moline of Agudas Achim Congregation in Alexandria.
To sharpen his attack on Kaine's faith-based objection to capital punishment, Kilgore aired ads this week that feature two relatives of murder victims who tearfully recount the crimes that killed their loved ones and say they don't trust Kaine to carry out death sentences.
In a Kilgore radio ad and a 60-second television spot, one of the relatives, death penalty proponent Stanley Rosenbluth, looks mournfully into the camera and says: "Tim Kaine says Adolf Hitler doesn't qualify for the death penalty. This was one of the worst mass murderers in modern times."
The ad cites a Richmond Times-Dispatch column that said that during an interview with a panel of the newspaper's reporters, Kaine "suggested he would not favor sending even Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin or Idi Amin to the gallows."
Kilgore spokesman Tim Murtaugh defended the ads and said that Rosenbluth spoke from his heart. Kaine helped handle the death row appeal of Mark Arlo Sheppard, the man convicted and executed in 1999 for the murder of Rosenbluth's son and daughter-in-law. Rosenbluth criticizes Kaine, a former criminal defense lawyer, for defending convicted killers.
"Those are Mr. Rosenbluth's sentiments and these thoughts are those that Mr. Rosenbluth freely expressed and they are thoughts that we appreciate," Murtaugh said.
U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va. and the highest-ranking Jewish member of Congress, sought to blunt criticism of the ad in a late afternoon conference call with reporters.
"What's offensive to me is that he (Kaine) would not have put Adolf Hitler to death. He killed six million Jews," Cantor said.
"He simply could have said, `Yes, I could have sentenced or upheld a judge's sentence to put Hitler to death.' Instead he said it was up to God to decide" who lives and dies, Cantor said.
In a campaign that had lacked a commanding issue and generated little voter interest, Kilgore's explosive ads put Kaine on the defensive. Kaine, who acknowledges he has moral objections to capital punishment rooted in his Roman Catholic faith, quickly responded with an ad pledging to carry out death sentences "because it's the law."
In a telephone news conference organized by Kaine's campaign, Moline and Tommy Baer, a former president of the Jewish organization B'nai Brith International, said Kilgore cynically arranged to have Rosenbluth, who is Jewish, deliver the lines and timed the radio ad to begin its run just before Yom Kippur, one of the most sacred holidays on the Jewish calendar.
"I think it's a desperate act and it needs to be condemned. It goes far beyond the pale of reasonable campaign rhetoric and simply does not belong in the public discourse. I find it demeaning and morally repugnant," Baer said.
Murtaugh said it was ridiculous to suggest that the ad was timed to forestall an outcry by Jewish leaders on the eve of Yom Kippur.
"The ad was timed to coincide with a point in the campaign where voters are paying attention," Murtaugh said.
Ads that invoke Hitler to score points in politics can backfire, said Rabbi Merrill Shapiro of the Congregation or Atid in suburban Richmond. He was not part of the Kaine conference call.
"Hitler is one of several examples of ultimate evil. Bandying that about is an affront to those who really know Hitler. We know the real Hitlers of the world," Shapiro said.