Kratovil, From Victim To Perp

After being the victim of misleading attack ads two years ago, Frank Kratovil is running for re-election with … a misleading attack ad.

Voters who remember the nasty 2008 race between Kratovil and Andy Harris should expect more of the same from this rematch - or worse. (The race is in the 1st Congressional District, which covers the Eastern Shore and parts of Anne Arundel and two other counties.)

Two years ago, with Barack Obama on the ballot, was a good time for Democrats. This, to say the least, is not.

Kratovil, a first-term Democratic congressman from Queen Anne's County in a tough race for re-election, focused his first television attack ad on a little-known part of Harris' platform.

"Can you imagine paying 23 percent sales tax on everything you buy?" the voiceover begins. "That's in Andy Harris' unfair tax plan."

That's followed by purported regular folks saying things like "a 23 percent sales tax will cut my business in half" and "that's too high for the average American out here."

The ad, first reported by The Baltimore Sun, clearly implies that Harris, a Republican state senator from Baltimore County, supports tacking a 23 percent sales tax on top of the taxes everyone already pays.

Not true.

The ad cites Harris' own website, where he says, "I favor fairer, flatter, simpler and lower taxes - I can support either the flat tax or the fair tax."

It also cites FairTax.org, whose slogan is "Abolish the income tax. Create an economic boom." The site supports a progressive sales tax and - here's the key part the ad purposely skipped - doing away with income, payroll and other taxes.

Jessica Klonsky, Kratovil's campaign manager, said the ad is "very fair" and backed up by documentation.

Klonsky said the race presents an important choice to voters and added, "Our approach is going to be to make sure that voters know what that choice is."

The facts be damned.

The fair/flat/whatever tax might be a terrible idea. But Kratovil's ad (http://tinyurl.com/kratovil) is a phony scare tactic.

Meanwhile, Harris kicked off his campaign with an image-building ad that plays like the trailer for a tearjerker movie. "His parents came to America to escape communism, all their belongings in a suitcase…" it begins.

Kratovil's website features a similarly positive spot called "Independent" that touts his bucking of the Democratic Party line.

The Harris campaign calls the fair tax ad false and a "desperate attack."

Yet, Harris is a hypocrite. In 2008, he ran despicable ads implying that Kratovil, then the Queen Anne's County state's attorney, threw a case as a favor to a political donor and was - inexplicably - soft on child molesters.

That year, Harris also attacked Kratovil for something he didn't say.

In a public forum discussing the financial crisis, Kratovil said, "The bigger issue is what do we do now. And as I mentioned in my talk, you know, in this country you oftentimes deal with a crisis - we solve the crisis, but we don't always deal with the long-term issues that led to the crisis."

Harris incessantly played a sound bite, suggesting Kratovil said "We solved the crisis." (Note the "D.") The ad mocked Kratovil for his naivete.

Clearly Kratovil said nothing of the sort, and Harris knew it.

"It's outrageous," Kratovil said in 2008. "I think he knows that the only way he wins now is to bring my positives down."

Et tu, Frank?

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