McSally ad features former GOP operative
Health care testimonial doesn’t list woman’s jobs
The camera pans across pictures of a woman in the hospital before Whitney from Queen Creek begins telling viewers about her rare blood disorder that requires monthly chemotherapy.
In the 30-second ad that began airing last week, Whitney says she fears health care plans from Democrats Mark Kelly and Joe Biden, saying the men would put “government in charge of our health care.”
She urges people to vote for Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., whom she assures will protect those with pre-existing conditions.
What the ad doesn’t say is that the speaker, Whitney Lawrence, is the former statewide field director for former Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., before he abandoned his re-election bid in October 2017.
It’s also the second health care ad in four months from McSally’s campaign that involves a testimonial from a former GOP political operative, though viewers wouldn’t know it from the ads alone.
In April, McSally’s campaign turned to cancer survivor Kristen Douglas, but didn’t identify her as a former campaign and congressional staffer for McSally.
Lawrence, 30, said she doesn’t think her past political experience, which also involved working for a GOP-friendly consulting firm and a Senate race in Nevada, is relevant to viewers.
“I don’t think it matters. While I have worked in Republican politics, it doesn’t mean I’m immune to life’s struggles and health issues,” she said in an interview. “My experience doesn’t change my story any less.”
Caroline Anderegg, a spokeswoman for McSally’s campaign, said the focus on Lawrence’s background is undeserved and seeks to shift attention from the Democrats’ health care agenda.
“This is yet another example of the mob trying to invalidate and shout down conservative voices — shame on them. We are grateful for Whitney’s courage to share her story and why she supports Senator McSally’s plan to protect her care instead of a Mark Kelly-Joe Biden government takeover that will hurt even more Americans with pre-existing conditions,” Anderegg said.
“Thanks to Whitney and thousands of other brave Arizonans who are not afraid of the liberals trying to silence them.”
Critics argue the close connections to the GOP and those delivering the testimonials isn’t helping McSally’s efforts to persuade people on health care policy.
“It’s kind of sneaky,” said Ann Crigler, a political science professor at the University of Southern California who has researched political advertising. Such testimonials are presumed to come from regular members of the public, not political operatives, she said.
“When there are important connections that you do not disclose, people feel like you are trying to hide something,” said Wendy Melillo Farrill, an associate communications professor at American University in Washington, D.C. “By not being transparent, it hurts her credibility because those connections matter.
Crigler said the inclusion of anyone with political backgrounds is likely no mistake.
“Professional campaign people are very careful about what goes into an ad, every single second, every single frame,” she said.
McSally’s campaign defended the Douglas ad in April, saying she offered an up-close view of McSally’s commitment on the issue.
“Kristen has known Martha for over a decade and when she heard the lies being spread across Arizona, she decided to speak up and share her first-hand experience about how Martha has fought for individuals with pre-existing conditions,” Dylan Lefler, McSally’s campaign manager, said at the time.
McSally’s campaign has also turned to Helen Purcell, the former longtime Maricopa County recorder and Republican, for a health care ad that appeared in June.
A silent, and unidentified, Purcell appears for less than two seconds as a person listening to McSally in an ad again hitting Kelly on health care coverage.
A Democratic-aligned group, the League of Conservation Voters, has run an anti-McSally ad that is similarly opaque.
That ad features Eric Meyer, who is identified as a physician, and proceeds to rip McSally over her environmental and health record. The ad, which is not connected to Kelly’s campaign and doesn’t mention him, also does not mention that Meyer was the minority leader for Democrats when he was in the Arizona House of Representatives.
ACA marketplace gave woman expensive care
McSally’s latest ad focuses on Lawrence, who began working with a lobbying and consulting group in Houston after leaving Flake’s shuttered campaign.
Shortly after moving there, Lawrence required medical attention to diagnose and begin treatment for a rare autoimmune disease in which her antibodies mistakenly treat her organs as a threat to her health.
The treatment plan requires monthly chemo, which leaves her weakened and unable to work regularly. She moved back to Arizona and needed to purchase private health insurance for herself from the ACA’s individual marketplace.
That coverage was expensive and didn’t cover much of her treatment, Lawrence said. She said she has piled up $38,000 in medical debt, most of it for the few months she was on the ACAbased coverage.
Lawrence says she now fears Kelly and Biden would send people like her back into more pricey coverage that doesn’t help.
“I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make sure Martha McSally gets elected because I have first-hand experience on how this has affected me . ... I can’t rely on the marketplace,” she said.
Kelly favors creating a public option in health insurance in which the government would compete for customers along with private insurers to provide coverage.
Biden favors lowering Medicare eligibility to 60 years old and also wants a public option to compete with private insurers. He also wants to boost public subsidies for those who cannot afford private insurance on their own.