Des Moines Register Tells on Itself in Pearl-Clutching Over New Kim Reynolds Campaign Ad

There are few places in America where you’ll find more pious self-righteousness and grossly inflated senses of moral superiority than the editorial boards of major newspapers, many of which are run by our supposed intellectual betters on the left who frequently accuse their critics of being narrow-minded and needing to get out more while urging them to get over their legitimate concerns about the country’s future.

This week’s shining example comes from the editorial board of the Des Moines Register (DMR) for who we understand the wahmbulance was on standby after pearl-clutching commenced over a new campaign ad put out by Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R).

Before we get to the editorial in question, let’s first take a look at the Reynolds ad just so you can have an idea of how truly absurd and out of touch the DMR sounded in their reaction:

Here in Iowa… America still works! Check out our second ad of the 2022 campaign! pic.twitter.com/RO0zhQdVpq

— Kim Reynolds (@KimReynoldsIA) September 22, 2022

Pretty standard fare for a gubernatorial reelection campaign ad. Highlighting national issues and the radical positions of the opposing political party while pointing out that under your watch sanity and common sense has prevailed despite all the outside noise.

But that’s not how the Register saw it. In a scathing editorial reminiscent of an elderly relative angrily pointing fingers, they decried the rather milquetoast ad in no uncertain terms:

We feel compelled to add our voice: The ad is dehumanizing. It’s racist. It’s embarrassing. It’s indefensible. It should be beneath any Iowa elected official.

The basis for their bizarre meltdown? Reynolds allegedly telling “people who look different from most Iowans that, at best, they are indeed different and, even worse, inferior,” something that at no point actually happened in the supposedly offensive video.

They went on to hyperventilate over Reynolds “dismissing” the “defund the police” movement because “it’s as though she believes [the rest of the country losing their minds is] the only plausible justification for such a view.”

Sadly for the Des Moines Register editorial board, most of the country – including black people, Hispanics, and Asian-Americans – agrees with Kim Reynolds on the issue of defunding the police, a movement that has been increasingly rejected even in the back yards of some of the bluest cities in the country.

The DMR really told on themselves, though, when they attacked Reynolds for using a clip of Squad member Cori Bush touting defunding the police at the beginning of the ad. Here’s what they wrote (bolded emphasis added):

However, Reynolds’ team opens the ad with a clip not of her opponent, Deidre DeJear, or of Biden or Pelosi, but of first-term Congresswoman Cori Bush, a progressive Democrat representing the St. Louis area. In other words, it’s a lesser-known Black U.S. House backbencher showing up in a spot for a candidate whose opponent is a lesser-known Black Iowa Democrat.

[…]

This and other implicit messages in the commercial are shrewd. Bush’s name appears on the screen — Reynolds doesn’t hide who Bush is. But consider the universe of possible Democratic voices who could have been featured, including such people as lightning-rod Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Republicans writ large use the slogan “defund the police” as a nuance-free way to assert that only they can provide for public safety. It would strain credulity to think there wasn’t a reason behind the selection of Bush, who vaguely resembles DeJear, to associate DeJear with the contentious slogan, even though she has explicitly stated she doesn’t favor defunding the police.

Rep. Cori Bush is a “lesser known … backbencher”? Who knew? Someone might want to alert her to this fact, considering she’s one of the most prominent voices being asked to comment on national TV programs about her positions on public safety matters.

And as far the insinuation that including AOC rather than Bush would have been less offensive, does the Register believe that would have been fairer even though AOC, too, is a woman of color who also supports defunding the police? Let’s not pretend that the Register would have had less of an issue with Reynolds using AOC in an ad over Bush. In fact, their outrage might have been even more intense had they done so.

As for the suggestion that the Reynolds campaign specifically chose Bush because she “vaguely resembles DeJear,” well, last I checked, saying all black people look alike was a pretty racist thing to say, so if the DM Register really does have any issues with ugly racism being on full display, they might want to check a mirror. I mean literally in the same paragraph where they acknowledge that the Reynolds campaign put Bush’s name clearly in the ad they then accuse Reynolds of deliberately substituting one black woman’s image for another’s.

I mean you really can’t make this stuff up.

The rest of the editorial was similarly worded, snidely condemning Reynolds for her stance on border security and “work to welfare,” with the editorial board just generally being the exact type of narrow-minded, bigoted type of people that they accuse Reynolds of being.

In a nutshell, what the Des Moines Register reminded us of is that when it comes to forming opinions on elected officials and other candidates who seek higher office, one of the most important things we can do in the process is to ignore what out-of-touch, closed-minded editorial boards who really need to get out more have to say.