“If the facts are on your side, argue the facts. If the law is on your side, argue the law. If neither the facts nor the law is on your side, bang on the table.”
I’ve said for a while that the most interesting race to follow as we trundle towards July 20th is the Attorney General’s race on the Democratic side. (In the interest of personal disclosure, Rob Teilhet’s a friend, and I’m supporting him. Not that you should care.) Now, that race has reached the table-banging stage with Hodges’ new mail piece attacking Teilhet.
It’s a pretty standard hit piece. On one side, you have the grainy black and white image of Teilhet, labeled “Just another career politician.” And on the other, a glorious, full-color shot of Ken Hodges, who far from being a “politician,” is a (cue triumphant heraldic trumpets here) a “prosecutor.”
Behind the styling, there are a couple of false arguments that make this mail piece not about the facts or the law, but about banging the table as loudly as possible and hoping no one notices the holes in your argument.
False Argument #1: Who’s the career politician?
Teilhet was elected to public office in 2002, while Hodges first started suckling on the public teat 14 years ago. So, to call Teilhet a “career politician” is disingenuous as best. Both men are seeking the same office, both have spent their time as elected officials. Difference is, Hodges has been a politician for almost twice as long.
False Argument #2: Do you need to be a prosecutor to be Attorney General?
Well, the short answer is … no. The Attorney General has a staff of attorneys working under him or her, whose job it is to do the actual heavy lifting in court. It’s also worth noting that the Attorney General’s office spends part of its time defending the state in court as well.
But more to the point, the Attorney General is a legal advisor, offering opinions on a variety of things, a lot of which have to do with how our state interacts with federal and local government. Moreover, the Attorney General’s role is that of a policymaker and policy implementer, two areas where Teilhet’s experience in the General Assembly make him more qualified.
Hodges wants you to believe that the Attorney General is kind of a Jack McCoy on steroids, going after the bad guys and putting them in the slammer. It’s not. It’s a policy and administrative position, plain and simple. The Attorney General doesn’t spend a lot of time in court, because he or she has other duties, and a staff of lawyers to handle trial work.
Hodges would rather not frame it that way, because frankly, it doesn’t do him any good. He’s a prosecutor, and good on him for that. I like prosecutors; they do a good job, by and large, of putting bad guys in jail. But his argument here is a false one. You don’t need to be a prosecutor to run the Attorney General’s office, you need to be a policymaker with a firm grounding in a wide variety of law, not merely criminal matters.
What does it all mean?
Not much, unfortunately.Take what Hodges says with a grain or two of salt. He’s doing the politically-savvy thing – framing the debate in the terms most favorable to him. (Just like a career politician should.) But, in this piece, at least, he doesn’t have the facts on his side (nearly twice as long in public office as his opponent), and he doesn’t have the law (i.e. the duties of the Attorney General), so he’s resorting to banging on the table.
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