LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A political ad now running on local TV shows graphic images, including aborted fetuses. The candidate running the ad says he's doing it to try and defeat President Obama.
His name is Andrew Beacham. He lives in Indiana, but is running for Kentucky's Second District congressional seat as an independent.
Beacham admits his ads are designed to shock. The ad begins with Beacham's voice saying, "Would you vote for a murderer? Would you vote for a man who paid others to murder for him?"
We have chosen to blur the most graphic images in Beacham's ad, including victims of gangster Al Capone, the remains of Holocaust victims, and aborted fetuses.
Congressional candidate Andrew Beacham says his ads are not necessarily intended to win the race: "My goal is to prick the conscience of the American voters in Indiana and Kentucky so that they don't vote for Obama. My number one goal is to cause Obama's defeat. And if I win, that's great. I don't expect to win."
Beacham says he is not worried that his ads may be counter-productive. "No, the goal is to inform. And unless people see the truth, they're not going to believe what I'm talking about. They really have to see it to believe it."
By law, TV and radio stations generally must carry and cannot censor ads for candidates running for federal office. And, of course, the constitution protects political speech.
"And sometimes the commentary can be offensive. But, too bad. Under our system, we tend to protect the offensive comments rather than suppress them," said Dr. Russ Weaver, professor of law at U of L.
Beacham is a disciple of abortion opponent Randall Terry, and calls himself a pro-life missionary. He's one of seven candidates across the country running these kinds of ads. "The images are fundamentally important to people's understanding of what it is that they're choosing," said Beacham.
Kentucky Right to Life's Political Action Committee says it is not connected in any way to Beacham's campaign.
But, in a statement, it says, "Nonetheless, KRLA-PAC sees Beacham's effort as a means of conveying the reality of abortion and helping to move the national discussion beyond platitudes.
By the way, Beacham says, according to election law, he must reside in the Second District by election day, which he says he plans to do.
WDRB's sister station, WMYO, is airing the ads. WDRB/WMYO President and General Manager Bill Lamb said in a statement for this story:
"In an effort to assure that each federal candidate can campaign for office free of any censorship of his or her message, Congress has, by statute, mandated (Lamb's emphasis) that we must air any commercial by a federal candidate regardless of how tasteless, vulgar, offensive or out of touch with a community's values it may be. While I fully support responsible (Lamb's emphasis) use of the public airways by federal candidates for public office, and the overwhelming majority of candidates do campaign well within community standards of decency, this requirement wrongly forces television stations to broadcast a commercial such as Mr. Beacham's."
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