Mosque on 2010 political campaigns

After the ‘’Ground Zero Mosque’’ controversy emerged, it seems as if politicians care less about their people and more about winning. As a citizen, I would expect my representative to at least promise to address some of the most prominent issues.  Instead, some are coming forward with absurd campaign ads that say nothing about them and just launch ungrounded accusations toward their opponents. 

                In the case of Renee Ellmers, Republican fighting for a seat in the House of Representatives for North Carolina-2, her campaign ad focuses solely on the Ground Zero Mosque.  The advertisement techniques are very impressive.  Starting with the audio, the buzz words ‘’victory mosques’’ create a false conception of the mosque in New York as a mosque the terrorists will build as physical proof of their conquest of America.   The ad fails to provide convincing evidence that terrorists, and not peaceful Muslims, are behind the construction of the mosque. 

Second, the images in the ad are also quiet interesting.  When speaking of the Muslims’ conquests, paintings illustrating warfare come up.  There is one that caught my attention, the one showing buildings on fire, very reminiscent of the airplane crash on the Twin Towers.  Also, the ad depicts monumental Mosques, nothing like what the mosque inside the community center will be. 

The ad concludes with Ellmers saying ‘’There will never be a mosque at Ground Zero.’’  This is probably the most accurate statement in the ad, because the Mosque wouldn’t be at Ground Zero, but two blocks away from it.  According to an article from Britannica, Ellmers seemed to be far behind her opponent, Democrat Bob Etheridge, which forced her to play her nastier card.

The National GOP Trust PAC launched its own ad, calling on Americans to join them in the effort of ‘’killing the Ground Zero Mosque.’’  This is a very graphic ad, and once again, it doesn’t bother to make a distinction between Muslims and terrorists, it actually implies that the Muslims behind the project are terrorists. It portrays the mosque as ‘’a monument of their victory and an invitation for war.’’  It points fingers to the ultimate Democratic leader, President Obama, for not doing anything to stop it. 

It is evident that politicians are taking advantage of the national attention the mosque near Ground Zero has gotten.  There are numerous issues at local and federal levels that could be address, yet somehow the upcoming elections have made a NY issue the center of many political campaign ads. Politicians conveniently turn to this issue in an attempt to distract voters from personal faults or incompetency.