Kansas Republican Uses Tiger Woods Arrest Footage in Attack Ad

Photo:  Kevin C. Cox (Getty Images)
Photo: Kevin C. Cox (Getty Images)
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This election cycle has seen its fair share of crazy, as election deniers and conspiracy theorists try to infiltrate every level of government.

But Republican Kris Kobach, who is running for attorney general in Kansas, took it to a whole new level of crazy when he included footage of golf great Tiger Woods’ 2017 DUI arrest in an ad attacking his opponent, Democrat Chris Mann.

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Kobach’s campaign is full of the typical Republican talking points, arguing that he is the best person to deal with rampant crime and illegal immigration in his state. In his ad, Kobach accuses Mann of being against the death penalty for people who kill police officers. The only problem is Woods did not kill a police officer. And as Mann’s campaign points out, the Democrat is a former police officer himself, who left the force after being hit by a drunk driver during a routine traffic stop. The Mann campaign called the ad “absolutely false and deceptive.”

“Not only does it feature Tiger Woods getting arrested as a cop killer, which we all know is false. It also contains multiple lies about Chris Mann. Lies like this shouldn’t be on TV. He needs to take down the ad. Chris Mann is a former cop who was injured in the line of duty. Kris Kobach has no shame in the lies he’ll tell to win political power,” said a Mann campaign spokesperson.

Kobach’s ad has since been edited to remove the footage of Tiger Woods. But the part about Mann going too easy on criminals is still there. And from the looks of it, they’re not apologizing for their mistake.

“We caught it and fixed it within minutes. What a happy accident that media is going to pick this up and expose Chris Mann as a soft-on-crime liberal Democrat who will let cop killers and mass murderers off easy for their heinous crimes,” said a spokesperson for the Kobach campaign.

I’m not sure what agency Kobach used to put his ad together. But it’s shameful that an exec thought it was a good idea to use random footage of a Black man being arrested. And the fact that they didn’t recognize Tiger Woods and approved the ad for air is even more proof that they are definitely in the wrong business.

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