Satirical Ad Derided All Around

US Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra is being roundly pilloried and denounced for his campaign ad, featuring a Chinese woman, speaking in pidgin English, mockingly beseeching Debbie to continue spending more, so that America continues to borrow from them and gets deeper and deeper into the debt mire.

Hoekstra’s intention was to target his Democratic Senate rival Debbie Stabenow and draw the public’s attention to the fact that she was supporting policies that resulted in US jobs and investments being outsourced to China.

The sarcasm and message got lost in the round of criticism that the advertisement garnered, as it was perceived to be racial and offensive.

Even though, the barrage of criticism forced Hoekstra to remove the advertisement from his campaign, he maintained that there was no racial streak in it at all. He alleged that his rival Debbie had given it a racial slant, to divert attention, since she could not defend her past record of supporting pro-Asian policies.

The Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote’s Michigan chapter disapproved of the ad and said that, “It is very disturbing that Mr. Hoekstra’s campaign chose to use harmful and negative stereotypes that intrinsically encourage anti-Asian sentiment.”

Judy Chu, D-Calif., the chairwoman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, said that the “Politics of fear and division will never bring the American people together around the solutions they so desperately need, and I am calling on former Rep. Hoekstra to take down this atrocious ad and issue an apology immediately.”

Even whilst pulling the ad from the air, Hoekstra maintained that his intention was to expose his rival’s policies and that “Democrats trying to make this an issue of race demonstrates their total ignorance of job creation policies.” “It’s a very straightforward message,” Hoekstra told the Detroit Free Press. “There’s nothing racist in this ad, this is all about holding Debbie accountable for her reckless spending.”

Meanwhile, the actress Lisa Chan who portrayed the Asia girl has now apologized for appearing in the ad  “It was absolutely a mistake on my part and one that, over time, I hope can be forgiven, I am deeply sorry for any pain that the character I portrayed brought to my communities.

The super PAC American Values is taking credit for Hoekstra taking the ad off from the web. However, its political director Jesse Tangkhpanya, said that merely taking the ad was not enough “we are not letting him go, he has to apologize.”

Ironically, the unexpected volley of criticism has made the advertisement much more effective and powerful than Pete Hoekstra would have ever imagined.