abstract
| - Americans Against Hate (AHA) was founded in 2000 by Republican consultant Stephen Marks. The group ran no-holds-barred television ads linking Vice-President and presidential candidate Al Gore to fellow Democratic party leader Al Sharpton. Marks told the New York Daily News, "We want to hold Al Gore's feet to the fire, just like George Bush got nailed for going to Bob Jones University," referring to Bush's controversial campaign stop at an anti-Catholic school in South Carolina with an interracial dating ban. Time magazine described the AHA commercial as one of the "gut-punching ads hit the airwaves last week [the end of October 2000] in the handful of ground-zero states as both parties and their sympathetic special-interest groups worked to boost turnout among the faithful--or drive it down." Time described the AHA ad, which aired in four states (Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Tennessee): "Sharpton, says the announcer, admires Hitler (flash to photo of the dictator) and defends rapists and cop killers (video of Willie Horton-style mug shots). The ad asks, 'Mr. Gore...what kind of unholy alliance will you have with Al Sharpton?'" In response, Sharpton called the AHA ad "outrageous and slanderous," but also said he "thought it would help Gore with black voters insulted by attempts to play the race card," reported the New York Daily News. Sharpton added, "I'm flattered by my new national image. Why don't they make a big deal out of my meetings with Republicans like Gov. Pataki and [New Jersey] Gov. [Christie] Whitman and Rick Lazio?"
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