Florida: Taliban Dan’ TV Ad Backfires on Grayson
Former state Sen. Daniel Webster has collected more than $100,000 in online donations since Rep. Alan Grayson (D) released a campaign ad that called him a religious fanatic and compared his views to those of the Taliban.
Grayson’s “Taliban Dan” ad caused a firestorm in GOP circles this week, especially after the independent group FactCheck.org debunked the ad for taking Webster’s comments out of context and distorting his record.
“Grayson accuses his Republican opponent Daniel Webster of being a religious fanatic and dubs him ‘Taliban Dan.’ But to make his case, Grayson manipulates a video clip to make it appear Webster was commanding wives to submit to their husbands, quoting a passage in the Bible,” FactCheck.org wrote in a release about the ad on Monday. “Four times, the ad shows Webster saying wives should submit to their husbands. In fact, Webster was cautioning husbands to avoid taking that passage as their own. The unedited quote is: “Don’t pick the [Bible verses] that say, ‘She should submit to me.’”
The ad quickly earned national attention, and conservative commentator Glenn Beck dubbed it the “worst campaign ad ever” on Tuesday.
Webster could use the help of Republicans expressing their outrage with their pocketbooks as Grayson’s massive war chest is his biggest asset heading into the final month of the campaign.