Over at David Postman’s new blog (sorry, I haven’t figured out how to permalink a specific entry there, so I’m just sending you to the site in general), he questions the Democrats anger at a recent McGavick spot.
Postman writes:

A state Democratic Party release calls the ad negative, misleading, dishonest, a smear, and fear mongering. But is it?

Since Postman’s not allowed to have opinions he doesn’t answer the question. The answer is this: Yes the ad is negative. It’s a little misleading. It’s not dishonest. It’s not a smear. And, yes, there’s some fear mongering in it.

However, when you get right down to it, the ad highlights a policy disagreement between Cantwell and McGavick about social security benefits and immigrants. W/ that basic disagreement anchoring the ad, it’s fair game for McGavick to stoke the coals on it.

Here’s the portion of the ad that the Democrats are really pissed about:

The incumbent also voted to offer Social Security benefits for people who are here illegally. I oppose this idea. There should be no rewards for breaking our laws. Washington state needs a Senator who will… not reward the breaking of our laws with scarce Social Security dollars.

The Democrats argue that the word “offer” implies that Cantwell wants to institute some sort of handout to illegal immigrants. The fact is she doesn’t. She voted against a bill that would have changed the status quo by taking away or denying legal immigrants the right to get back the money they paid into the system when they were working as illegal immigrants.

This is not a “reward for breaking our laws” but an incentive for getting with the system and following the law.

Additionally, the McGavick spot talks about “scarce Social Security dollars” to imply that “law breakers” will be taking a costly bit out of the pie. Wrong. Again, Cantwell voted to uphold the status quo where Social Security dollars are being paid out to people—who are now following the law—who paid in.

Indeed, the pot would be even “scarcer” if those dollars weren’t there in the first place. So if you think about it, McGavick’s position calls for the Social Security Administration to take money from workers, put it into the system, and never give the money back when the worker retires—and I guess, give it to someone else.

The Democrats should spend more time trashing McGavick’s position than grousing about the tone of McGavick’s ads.

This is a campaign. Of course McGavick is going to spin Cantwell’s votes. And, quite frankly, while McGavick is certainly playing fast and lose with the word ‘offer’, he’s still challenging Cantwell’s basic position. She believes legal immigrants are entitled to the money they paid into the system when they were illegal immigrants. McGavick does not. If McGavick wants to have that debate, Cantwell should take him up on it.