Rodney Davis’ Scorched-Earth Lying Campaign Is Why Changes Are Needed –

ILLINOIS (ECWd) –

During my college years, there was ample discussion on campaign strategy studies – most arguing how politicians should avoid negative advertising, or at the very least to avoid being the first in your political race to engage in negative advertising. Unfortunately, the campaign reality always came back to one simple point: negative advertising works because most people are too lazy to research the allegations behind the negative ads.

This type of campaigning should not have to be tolerated, and changes in laws need to be made to hold people accountable for their intentional and reckless abuse of candidates during the election cycles.

Don’t take this the wrong way – true statements against candidates, no matter how bad they are, should always be protected, but what I have witnessed in this election cycle with the Rodney Davis campaign exceeds all bounds of decency.

Here are a few examples:

• Rodney Davis blasted his opponent claiming she voted against military service members, when the reality is exactly the opposite (read it here) – the House Bill Rodney Davis mentioned is the one Davis voted in favor of which included “red flag” provisions for servicemembers, stripping them of their constitutional rights and even prohibiting local and state judges from intervening on the servicemember’s behalf. We understand his opponent voted against this bill for that very reason – to protect servicemember’s second amendment rights.
• Rodney Davis blasted his opponent because her family took federal money, while at the same time not mentioning all the COVID-related federal money his own family received. Rodney Davis voted against releasing names of COVID (PPP Loan) money recipients – after his own family received more than one million dollars ($1,000,000.00) (read it here).
• Davis filed an ethics complaint against his opponent for allegedly using video/photo from the house floor showing Rodney Davis with President Obama – never mind the video/photo did not come from official (prohibited) sources, it came from national news broadcasts. We believe the complaint was simply a last-minute smokescreen to give him fodder to write about.
• Davis lied again, claiming his opponent hired a pedophile, which is simply not true. She accepted a ride in a county she was visiting and was apparently unaware of his history. No hiring took place, and no money was paid by the candidate or her campaign.
• Davis sits silent about taking a tropical island vacation during New Year’s holiday just a few short months ago. Your federal dollars paid for that, and he took his family with him (read it here).
• Davis claims to support farmers but takes campaign donations from an anti-farmer PAC (read it here).
• Davis lied on his campaign page when he published a list of endorsements, that were not actual endorsements (read it here).
• There are more, but you get the point…

Is the promise of an elected federal position so strong that people will sell their soul to get there?