During this last week before the election, the tone of political ads in central Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District race is expected to change. Throughout most of the campaign, Democratic incumbent Ben Chandler and Republican challenger Andy Barr have endorsed attack ads. But many highly-critical campaign commercials come from outside the Commonwealth. Chandler calls that a problem.
“There’s no accountability in it. There’s no disclosure, no serious disclosure requirements and we need to change the law. We need to change the law and get a lot of this money out of politics,” said Chandler.
Chandler this week promised to only run positive ads for the remainder of the campaign. Barr also believes candidates can be elected through purely positive political messages.
“We I think you can and I think we’ve endeavored to do that. We’ve talked about the issues that matter. Now, have we talked about contrasts between us and Congressman Chandler on the issues and his voting record. Of course we have, and I think that’s legitimate,” said Barr.
While Barr’s okay with commercials that question a politician’s political record, he considers personal attacks illegitimate. Admitting such limits on speech could be unconstitutional, Chandler would still like to see attack ads prohibited. One person outside the advertising debate is Randolph Vance, who is the independent in the race.
