On the MinnesotaBrown interview used in attack ads

It’s interesting to watch Rep. Chip Cravaack’s campaign and the American Action Network use footage from my interview with Cravaack’s challenger and former Rep. Rick Nolan last spring in negative attack ads.

I had written a couple weeks ago that I was glad the interview was being viewed and that the quotes were being used in context. Well, it now seems the interview excerpt is being used to suggest that the slow process to consider Polymet permits was being defended by Nolan, which wasn’t the point of his original statement in my interview.

Nolan’s point then was that having a clear, consistent environmental policy could create jobs in keeping big plants clean and attracting more residents to a place that is clean and productive. I don’t think he chose his words carefully, and perhaps his argument is subject to push-back, but that was the original context. Nolan, like Cravaack, has criticized delays to the environmental review process.

This would bother me less, perhaps not at all, had Rep. Cravaack accepted my numerous requests for a similar interview. I think the fact that my interview with Nolan is now being used in negative attack ads shows that I didn’t give him a softball interview. It was a fair interview. And I was going to give Cravaack a fair interview as well. Time is waning, but should Cravaack prevail I hope he’ll reconsider next time. Then again, if polls hold, that will be a moot point.

Comments

  1. And they cited KAXE and WTIP in the ad as sources!

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