Red Alert Politics

Iowa Dem senate hopeful likens female GOP opponent to a chick

By Melissa Quinn
Published June 5, 2014 8:41pm ET
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Iowa Democratic Senate nominee Bruce Braley released a new campaign ad Wednesday that compares his female GOP opponent Joni Ernst to a chick.

Titled “Peep,” the ad attempts to highlight instances where Ernst remained quiet during her tenure in the state senate, barely making a peep. But Braley — whose campaign has seen its fair share of hiccups — compared his female Republican opponent to a small chick, drawing a bevy of criticism.

“We’ve all heard the one about pigs squealing, but when Joni Ernst had the chance to do something in Iowa, we didn’t hear a peep,” a narrator says as an image of a baby chick appears.

Brad Dayspring, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said the ad proves there is a double standard and noted that if a male GOP candidate used the image of a chick, there would be outrage.

“Does anyone doubt that if a male Republican candidate ran an ad comparing a female Democratic candidate to a chick, inboxes across Washington would be filled with outraged press releases demanding that the ad be condemned and taken down?” Dayspring said in an email to Business Insider. “Of course not, but for now the outrage kings at the DSCC and their mouthpieces at liberal news organizations remain silent.”

The ad quickly gained attention across political circles in Iowa, too. Tim Hagle, a political science professor at the University of Iowa, quickly pointed to the lack of outrage from feminists.

Braley’s campaign has faced a number of missteps in the last several months. The Democratic Senate hopeful was caught making disparaging remarks toward Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and farmers in April, sent out a press release that frequently misspelled common farming words in March and posted a photo of a farm in England — not Iowa — to his Facebook several days later.

Both Braley and Ernst won their respective party’s nominations Tuesday and will face each other in November.