What was he thinking? Nevada Congressional Candidate Mark Amodei has created a
What was he thinking?
Nevada Congressional Candidate Mark Amodei has created a 30-second spot which opens with a fake Chinese news anchor relating how “our great empire rose again” when the United States kept borrowing money from China to feed its spending until “their independence became a new dependence.”
The narration plays over images of padlocked factory gates, President Barack Obama presumably signing debt bills into law, the dollar sign turning into the yuan symbol, the Chinese flag flying over skyscapers and, in the end, Obama bowing to Chinese leader Hu Jintao as the Chinese Army marches on the Capitol grounds.
Chinese language captions dot the 30-second ad as music plays in the background. Yu Lin, a Washington-based reporter and cameraman for the official Xinhua News Agency, said the song is the military anthem of the People’s Liberation Army.
The captions, he said, are in traditional Chinese. The message, running in a loop, translates to “The Big Debt,” “America became its own worst enemy,” Our Great Empire Rose Again.”
Says Amodei at the ad’s tagline: “I’ll never vote to raise Obama’s debt limit.”
Andrew Davey, a progressive blogger from Henderson, called the ad “xenophobic.”
Amodei “clearly hasn’t received the memo from the great titans of Nevada industry,” Davey said, such as Steve Wynn and Sheldon Adelson who operate casinos in the Chinese territory of Macau, and as the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority plans to open an office in China.
The Asian American Action Fund is dubbing Mark Amodei’s “Red Scare” advertisement “xenophobic” and is asking the Nevada Republican congressional candidate to take it off the air.
“The AAA-Fund strongly condemns Mark Amodei’s offensive, fear-mongering campaign ad,” said AAAF executive director Gautam Dutta, executive director of Asian American Action Fund, a Democratic-affiliated group. “We call on Mr. Amodei to immediately remove this racially charged ad from the airwaves and issue an immediate apology to every Nevadan.”
California Rep. Judy Chu, the first female Chinese American ever elected to Congress, also contends the ad uses “Chinese language and imagery in a sinister light.”
We believe in free speech and we understand what message you are trying to get across but this ad was executed poorly and will no doubt foster racism against Asians in America. The message does not even get across properly. The commercial moves too fast. It needs to be removed!