Gotcha Politics; Nevada Senate Race Heats Up
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: It's a rare behind-the-scenes look at gotcha politics. Candidates are recruiting people to track down their opponents to try to get them to say something controversial. But is it right? And is it working? I'm Brooke Baldwin. The news is now.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Businesses will leave this state quicker than Carl Paladino at a gay bar.</s>BALDWIN (voice-over): The gloves are off.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It doesn't make sense.</s>BALDWIN: Two weeks to go until Election Day, and it seems characters are welcome.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rent, it's too damn high.</s>BALDWIN: And that was before the two main candidates in the New York gubernatorial race took their turns. Wait until you see what happened.</s>DONNA PARKS, MOTHER OF BRANDON COX: And they handcuffed my son when he went to them to tell them he had been shot.</s>BALDWIN: College students hit by police gunfire outside a bar. One student is dead. His best friend's mother tells us a shocking side of this story. So, how are police responding? You will hear it. And from coffee to cocktails, why you may need to start showing your I.D. at the Starbucks counter.</s>BALDWIN: Got all of that for you and a whole lot more. Hi, everyone. I'm Brooke Baldwin. CNN NEWSROOM rolls on right now. Let's talk election, shall we? Fourteen days and counting until the big midterms, and this neck-and-neck Nevada Senate race really reaching a boiling point today. And in case you thought it couldn't get any hotter, it has. This afternoon, we expect to hear at any moment during our program from the Democrat in this race. I'm talking about the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, any moment in this program. We're going to of course bring that to you live as soon as we see him step foot on a podium. Meantime, he is expected to respond to this latest controversy in the hard-fought campaign. Let's back up. This all started with this ad from the candidate backed by the Tea Party movement. Talking about Republican Sharron Angle. Things got a little hot over the weekend after Sharron Angle spoke to a group of high school students, but not just any high school students, Hispanic students at a high school in Las Vegas. And she was asked essentially to explain the images in that ad, images showing what appeared to be dark-skinned men crossing the border. She began with these students saying she's not sure all of those were Latinos in that ad. But she went on. Here's what she told the students next.</s>SHARRON ANGLE (R), NEVADA SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: So, that's what we want, is a secure and sovereign nation. And, you know, I don't -- I don't know that all of you are Latino. Some of you look a little more Asian to me. I don't know that. What we know about -- what we know about ourselves is that we are a melting pot in this country. My -- my grandchildren are evidence of that. I'm evidence of that. I have been called the first Asian legislator in our Nevada State Assembly.</s>BALDWIN: So, let's talk about this ad or this -- these remarks, specifically, because of a particular ad, and we will push it forward here with senior congressional correspondent Dana Bash. And, Dana, I have a lot of questions for you, but I want to start with the first two.</s>BALDWIN: One -- and good to see you, by the way.</s>BALDWIN: One, hearing -- hearing from Sharron Angle, she mentions her -- her grandkids of mixed ethnicity, part of this melting pot. So, I'm curious, number one, if you could extrapolate. And, number two, in Nevada, you have this make-or-break -- and not just Nevada, by the way, elsewhere -- this make-or-break Hispanic constituency that really -- you know, this has become a race about race.</s>DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Well, to answer your first question, Sharron Angle does have a daughter-in-law who is Mexican, and her grandchildren are Mexican- American. So, that does answer that first question. But on the politics of the Hispanic vote, there is no question that it is a big issue across the country this year, and it is a very big issue in the state of Nevada, because about a quarter of the population is Hispanic. And so that voting sector is absolutely critical. Having said that, Brooke, I have spoken to some senior Republican strategists who are really monitoring and involved in that race, and they say, look, the hard truth is that the ads that Sharron Angle are running, like -- like the one you talked about, it's very clear that she has made a decision kind of to give -- give herself a wedge, and that the Hispanic population is not likely to vote for her. So she's going to try to gin up those who are perhaps on the other side of the divide with regard to the immigration and illegal immigration battle.</s>BASH: And, Dana, we know from all your reporting that you've been doing, you are intimately familiar with a lot of these attack ads this -- this election season. And, in some cases, they're not just using -- you're not just hearing this big, booming voice of the narrator. It's also the candidates' words themselves being used against them.</s>BASH: Mm-hmm. That's exactly right. We -- you just played Sharron Angle. That wasn't used in an ad. The Democrats didn't have to, because it's flying all over the Internet and we're playing it on TV. But every year we do see a new trend in ads. And this particular one is using something like this, a BlackBerry or a cell phone, a flip-cam, to try to catch candidates saying something that can be used against them.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ms. Moore, in this election, would you support Nancy Pelosi for speaker?</s>BASH (voice-over): That's not a reporter asking the question. It's someone with Kansas House candidate Stephanie Moore's opponent.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you support Nancy Pelosi for speaker?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is Dakota. He follows me and asks me that question.</s>BASH: Dakota is what's known as a tracker, an opposing campaign's aide or supporter who follows candidates to events, looking for gotcha moments to turn into 30-second ads. Here's an ad in New Hampshire where Democrat Carol Shea-Porter is caught making what Republicans think is a politically unpopular admission.</s>REP. CAROL SHEA-PORTER (D), NEW HAMPSHIRE: I think I have a 90 percent rating with the president. 93 percent with the House. All along, I have said, you know, this is what I believe.</s>BASH: It's an exploding trend in political ads this year, using candidates' own words against them, often with video captured by trackers.</s>EVAN TRACEY, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, CAMPAIGN MEDIA ANALYSIS GROUP: It's that candid camera, gotcha moment. Any time you can get your opponent on film saying something that is not popular with voters and you can put that in your ad and feed it out 30 seconds at a time, it's a much more effective way to run a negative ad.</s>BASH: Remember Republican Senator George Allen's 2006 infamous macaca moment?</s>SEN. GEORGE ALLEN (R), VIRGINIA: This fellow here, over here, with the yellow shirt, macaca, or whatever his name is, he's with my opponent. And he's following us around everywhere.</s>BASH: A tracker shot that, and what appeared to be a racial slur by Allen helped sink his campaign. Now, four years later, flip cams, cell phones and advances in technology make this brand of negative campaigning much easier.</s>TRACEY: This is the macaca moment on steroids this election.</s>BASH: And it's a bipartisan phenomenon. Colorado voters see it from both Senate candidates. (</s>BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, AD) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you pro-life? And I will answer the next question. I don't believe in the exceptions of rape or incest.</s>ANNOUNCER: Ken Buck, he's too extreme for Colorado.</s>BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, AD) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Reckless spending becomes a habit. Bennet voted for Obama's failed stimulus.</s>SEN. MICHAEL BENNET (D), COLORADO: I voted for it, and I'm glad I did.</s>BALDWIN: And, Dana --</s>BASH: And there you have it, Brooke. I mean, we --</s>BALDWIN: Go ahead. You go.</s>BASH: You go ahead.</s>BASH: I was going to button that up by saying let's -- that -- that it's very, very clear that this is an exploding trend. Talk to people who watch ads and monitor them and talk to people who make these ads, they say that this is incredibly powerful, much more powerful, to have the candidate's words, the opponent's words, than just have a narrator saying it.</s>BALDWIN: Yes. And the fact that he said that this -- this is a macaca moment, macaca moment on steroids this election.</s>BALDWIN: And I think case in point, and you --</s>BALDWIN: You showed just a snippet of it, and I want you to just take it a little further. The ad out of New Hampshire, Carol Shea- Porter, what strikes you about this? She's talking about her voting record. What about this strikes you?</s>BASH: Well, I think we actually have the whole ad. And I would -- and I would like to play it, because I want to play it for our viewers and then talk about it on the other end.</s>BALDWIN: Yes.</s>BASH: Let's listen.</s>BALDWIN: Let's listen. (</s>BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, AD) SHEA-PORTER: I'm not going to pretend that I'm voting with the opposite party half the time. I'm not. I'm not. I think I have about a 90 percent rating with -- with the president. And maybe that's --</s>SHEA-PORTER: Ninety-three percent with the House. All along, I have said, you know, this is what I believe. This is what I believe -- believe -- believe -- believe -- believe.</s>NARRATOR: Call Congresswoman Shea-Porter. Let her know if what you believe is what she believes when it comes to spending your tax dollars.</s>BASH: Now, Brooke, here is why I think that this is one of the most classic case of one of these ads out there. It is because you see ads across the country, the number-one message from Republicans, trying to tie Democratic candidates to Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership in Washington. Well, there you have Carol Shea-Porter, a Democratic congresswoman, doing it for them.</s>BALDWIN: In her own words.</s>BASH: And it was -- I have got to tell you, I talked -- exactly -- I talked to a Republican -- by the way, that is one of those ads from an outside group. We don't know where the -- where the -- where the donors are -- are coming from. We don't know who funded that. But I talked to a Republican who was involved in making that ad, and he was giddy, really giddy, for that reason, because they just couldn't believe that they had her saying what they were trying to say all along. Now, I will tell you, I spoke with Carol Shea-Porter's campaign up in New Hampshire, and they say, look, you know, it is what it is. She was at a town hall. She was asked a question by someone who they think was a legitimate voter. And she's honest. She said, look, I'm a Democrat and I'm voting with my party. So, they make no apologies for it, but they also are telling me in New Hampshire, just like everywhere else -- and this is what is so fascinating about the dynamic out there -- is that they know that there is a tracker from her Republican opponent's campaign always with them. And guess what? The Democratic Party in New Hampshire, they always have a tracker following her opponent. So --</s>BALDWIN: Yes. And you mentioned --</s>BASH: -- it's the state of play. It's --</s>BALDWIN: You mentioned --</s>BASH: It's what is going on.</s>BALDWIN: -- the guy you spoke with was giddy. And you also brought up an excellent point, the fact that, you know, we don't know, and we don't have to know legally, who funded it. I want you to explain what these 501(c)s --</s>BASH: Mm-hmm.</s>BALDWIN: -- and the Supreme Court ruling, that's not necessarily new, right? What's new is the fact that it's -- the funding can be unlimited.</s>BASH: That's exactly right. It is -- these -- these kinds of groups have existed, these kinds of groups that are allowed to -- to run ads and do political activity without disclosing their donors. What is -- what is new now, after the Supreme Court decision earlier this year, is that corporations and unions are allowed to give to these groups in -- in an unlimited way from their general treasuries. So, that's why we think that these groups are spending a lot more money and getting a lot more money. But, you know, it's sort of important to underscore the point we should say we think that. We don't really know, because we aren't seeing their roles. We're not seeing exactly where this money is coming from.</s>BALDWIN: All right, Dana Bash for us, senior congressional correspondent in New York, appreciate it. Thank you, Dana.</s>BASH: Thanks, Brooke.</s>BALDWIN: Remember, we are all over these breaking stories from the campaign trail, so you can stay informed, not just rely on certain ads, right, to make your choices. CNN equals politics right here on TV and on the goal. Check out our new elections app. Go to CNN.com/mobile to download it to your smartphone. Here's a question. What is going on at the Pentagon? Early, early this morning, someone fired shots at this building. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but there are a whole lot of questions here, many of which have yet to be answered. That is ahead. Also, there are shocking allegations against a firefighter in Georgia. The story is unbelievable. This -- this man is accused of videotaping the graphic aftermath of a car accident, including the body, the daughter of two parents here who was killed in the accident. The outrageous details are next.