Pete Hoekstra .com

Asian American Actress in Hoekstra Ad Apologizes: ‘It Was Absolutely A Mistake’

admin — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 08:33:32 +0000

Huffington Post’s Amanda Terkel reports that Lisa Chan, the actress who appeared in Pete Hoekstra’s racially-charged ad, has apologized, calling her participation “a mistake.”

The commercial was widely criticized for its cultural insensitivity and furthering negative stereotypes of Asian-Americans. It ran on Super Bowl Sunday but was pull down a couple of days later.

In the ad, a woman, played by Chan, was shown bicycling through a landscape of rice paddies. As she approached the camera, the actress sarcastically thanked “Michigan Senator Debbie Spend-it-Now” for spending so much money, it was helping the Chinese economy at the expense of the U.S.

“Your economy get very weak. Ours get very good,” she said in broken and stereotypically accented English.

“I am deeply sorry for any pain that the character I portrayed brought to my communities,” Chan wrote on her Facebook page. “As a recent college grad who has spent time working to improve communities and empower those without a voice, this role is not in any way representative of who I am. It was absolutely a mistake on my part and one that, over time, I hope can be forgiven. I feel horrible about my participation and I am determined to resolve my actions.”

The silence — and lack of apology — out of the Hoekstra camp is deafening, which is par for the course when Pete makes a mistake. He doesn’t say “I’m sorry” as a true leader would. He doubles down and points fingers. “We knew we were taking an aggressive approach on this,” Hoekstra is quoted as saying in response to the criticism. “But this is a time where the people in Michigan and across the country are fed up with the spending, and we wanted to capture that frustration that they had with Washington, D.C. This ad … hits Debbie smack dab between the eyes on the issue where she is vulnerable with the voters of Michigan, and that is spending.”

I don’t know why I should expect any growth or personal development out of Hoekstra, who served in Congress for 18 years. But when you screw up this badly and offensively, one would think he’d have a conscience about it.

I guess not.

Read more at HuffingtonPost.com and Angry Asian Man blog.

Public Policy Polling Shows Stabenow Leading Hoekstra by 14 percent

admin — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 03:46:58 +0000

A new report from Public Policy Polling (PPP) of Raleigh, NC, shows Democratic U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow has taken her biggest lead yet in the four polls conducted by PPP on the Michigan U.S. Senate race dating back to December of 2010. She now leads former U.S. Representative Pete Hoekstra by 14 points, 51-37, and has an even wider 17-point advantage over Clark Durant at 50-33. In three previous polls, Stabenow led Hoekstra by an average of just 7 points and on the most recent one, in July, her lead was 9%.

What’s interesting, according to PPP, is that Stabenow’s approval numbers have barely moved over the last six months. But Hoekstra’s numbers have plunged. In July his favorability/unfavorability rating was narrowly positive at 31/30. Now he’s dropped a net 11 points to a -10 spread at 28/38. There have only been minor shifts in his numbers with Democrats and Republicans, but with independents his numbers have flipped from +10 (33/23) to -10 (29/39).

Hoekstra’s wounds appear to be self-inflicted. His controversial, racially-charged Super Bowl commercial has clearly hurt him. PPP’s survey said 54% of Michigan voters were familiar with it, and within that group, 45% said it made them less likely to vote for him compared to only 16% who considered it a positive and 37% who said it didn’t make a difference to them either way. Independents were heavily turned off by the ad; Hoekstra’s gone from leading with them by 6% in July to trailing by 4%.

PPP says Hoekstra remains the overwhelming favorite in the Republican primary. He’s at 42% to 9% for Clark Durant, 6% for Scotty Boman, 4% for Gary Glenn, 2% for Randy Hekman, 1% each for Peter Konetchy and Rick Wilson, and 0% for Chuck Marino.

Read more @ PublicPolicyPolling.com and see full results here.

Do you still think the feedback has been “overwhelmingly positive,” Pete?

LINSANITY and Pete Hoekstra

admin — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 06:59:55 +0000

“Linsanity” has erupted in New York City over Jeremy Lin, a point guard for the New York Knicks who has come out of nowhere to lead the team to five consecutive victories. He came off the bench to score 25 in a win over New Jersey last Saturday, scored 28 in his first career start on Monday, had 23 points and 10 assists on Wednesday against Washington, scored 38 on Friday night in a win over Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers, and on Saturday, he scored 20 points including the go-ahead free throws with 4.9 seconds remaining to clinch a come-from-behind victor over the Minnesota Timberwolves. The second-year player out of Harvard has scored more points in his first four starts than any player in history since the merger of the NBA and ABA in 1976.

Lin’s story is incredible. According to his Wikipedia profile, he didn’t receive any scholarships out of high school, and despite a solid collegiate career at Harvard, he was not selected in the 2010 NBA draft. He was picked up briefly by Golden State, and then Houston, and landed in NY toward the end of last season. Lin didn’t even start the season with a guaranteed contract — his rise from bench-warmer to superstar seems like a fairy tail.

And one more thing: Jeremy Lin is a Taiwanese American, the first American player in the NBA to be of Chinese or Taiwanese descent.

So it’s only fitting that the same week Pete Hoekstra launched, and then folded, his horrendously insensitive ad, which stirred up all sorts of criticism of racial and cultural bias, that we’re given an opportunity to see an Asian American rise to prominence with a tremendous achievement that’s as emblematic of the American dream as anything I’ve ever seen.

Michigan can, and must, do better than Pete Hoekstra, and we’ll be here for the next 9 months to make sure that happens!

Detroit News: “Hoekstra Backs off Super Bowl Ad”

admin — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 07:13:18 +0000

Marisa Schultz of the Detroit News reports “Former U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra has taken down a controversial Chinese-themed website and is phasing in a new TV commercial in the slot of his original Super Bowl ad that was panned as racially insensitive.”

When Schultz asked Hoekstra campaign spokesman Paul Ciaramitaro about dropping the old, he said in an e-mail: “After hundreds of thousands of visitors to the micro-site saw our first campaign ad and the effects of Stabenow’s reckless spending, we wanted to direct traffic to Pete’s site where voters can see our second ad, which lays out Pete’s vision of fiscal discipline and economic growth.”

What a crock.

Pete was shellacked by the negative backlash on his racially-charged ad, and correctly pulled it down. (Although he never admitted the slightest bit of remorse.)

One of Hoekstra’s Republican challengers, Clark Durant, was also disgusted by rival’s ad. He launched his own television commercial criticizing Hoekstra’s ad as “demeaning,” “hypocrisy,” “misleading” and “goofy.”

You can watch Durant’s new ad here:

Hoekstra out with New TV Commercial and Fundraising Appeal

admin — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:31:24 +0000

Pete Hoekstra for U.S. Senate supporters received an email Thursday morning, announcing the launch of a new television ad:

Thankfully, this time around, there is no racially-charged imagery or Chinese-American actresses speaking fake splintered English. Here’s the original commercial:

One quick note: Hoekstra originally posted the offensive ad on YouTube and as soon as the negative ratings started flooding in, he disabled comments and ratings. However, there are at least three other versions of the ad posted on YouTube, here, here and here. Roughly 85% of the comments — 1700 to 300 at the time of writing — were “Dislike”.

But as you know, Pete referred to the feedback as “overwhelmingly positive.”

Here’s the fundraising letter:

Hoekstra Bows to Public Pressure – Pulls Racist Ad and Website

admin — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:51:29 +0000

Public Outcry 1, Pete Hoekstra 0.

In a matter of roughly 72 hours, Pants-on-Fire Pete Hoekstra went from calling his “Debbie Spend-it-Now” Super Bowl ad “overwhelmingly positive” to replacing the racially-charged commercial with a new, non-culturally insensitive ad and pulling down the debbiespenditnow.com site entirely. Visitors who go to www.debbiespenditnow.com are automatically redirected to petespenditnot.com.

Note there’s been no press release, no public comment, no apology, no communication whatsoever about pulling the offensive advertisement.

That’s what politicians do. They sweep things under the rug hoping they’ll blow over.

Leaders lead.

Leaders are courageous.

Leaders don’t play to our worst instincts.

They resist temptation to take the low road, even if it’s the politically expedient move.

And when leaders make a mistake, they admit it, and say “I’m sorry.”

Pete Hoesktra, you are not a leader.

And we at PeteHoekstra.com are committed to making sure everyone understands this.

Michigan can, and must, do better.

Weapons of Mass Disinformation

admin — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:43:19 +0000

(Editor’s Note: Another guest post from our long-time reader and new PeteHoekstra.com contributor.)

With Rick Santorum’s caucus and primary victories in Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri, we’re reminded of one of Pete Hoekstra’s “greatest hits,” back when he was chair of the House intelligence committee. It was in June, 2006 that the senator from Pennsylvania Santorum and congressman from Michigan Hoekstra were proud to announce that yes, finally, “weapons of mass destruction” were found in Iraq! The Bush administration wasn’t made up of lying war-mongers after all. Ah, sweet vindication.

Well, they found something alright. But it wasn’t a cache of weapons poised to destroy the United States. According to the Washington Post:

“The lawmakers pointed to an unclassified summary from a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center regarding 500 chemical munitions shells that had been buried near the Iranian border, and then long forgotten, by Iraqi troops during their eight-year war with Iran, which ended in 1988.

“The U.S. military announced in 2004 in Iraq that several crates of the old shells had been uncovered and that they contained a blister agent that was no longer active. Neither the military nor the White House nor the CIA considered the shells to be evidence of what was alleged by the Bush administration to be a current Iraqi program to make chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

“Last night, intelligence officials reaffirmed that the shells were old and were not the suspected weapons of mass destruction sought in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.”

Five hundred impotent old shells. 4,484 United States military dead. Over a half-million Iraqi dead. Pete Hoekstra, back safe in Washington, forked lying tongue, bloodied hands.

The Chinese are Not Amused

admin — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:49:25 +0000

WashingtonPost foreign correspondent Keith Richburg reports, “The now-infamous Super Bowl ad by Michigan senate candidate Pete Hoekstra has attracted as much curiosity as outright criticism here in China, the intended ‘subject’ of the ad.”

Richburg says the popular Web site Shanghaiist called the ad “creepy” and “racist,”and he points out something we’ve been thinking the whole time: “a supposedly Chinese woman peddling a bicycle with what looks like a Vietnamese cone-shaped hat, in a lush green rice field that more resembled Vietnam’s Mekong Delta paddies than anything in modern China.”

In other words, not only is Hoekstra showing ignorance with respect to racial and culture sensitivities, but geographical ignorance as well.

But they all look the same, right Pete?

Michigan can, and must, do better.

[Read "Pete Hoekstra’s ad raises ire in China — and a sense of deja vu" at WashingtonPost.com]

Another Batch of Angry Emails

admin — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:38:28 +0000

So much for “overwhelmingly positive!”…

“Your Superbowl Sunday ad was tasteless and racist. What a moron that you are.”

“Your Superbowl ad displays your ignorance and bigotry. At what point does the US own up to their own shortcomings? Why not attack the companies who manipulate Chinese labor, etc…and you have CEOs making hundreds of millions, etc…Are you going to blame banks for lending cash strapped consumers money? Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic. I would be motivated to get into politics so that you never win a seat in office, and then have you work for me as a dishwasher in a Chinese restaurant.”

“I’m a patriotic, Vietnam-era ex-USMC sergeant and you’re a low, fabricating piece of s**t, Repooplican corporations shipped jobs overseas, and now you’re blaming a Democrat. You need a serious ass-kicking and I volunteer.”

“You are such an idiot racist for running that ad about the woman with a fake Chinese accent. It is people like people like you who don’t solve problems but only point fingers accusing those who can’t fight back.”

Central Michigan Life Editorial: Hoekstra Should Drop Out

admin — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:21:27 +0000

The Editorial Board of Central Michigan Life is out with an Editorial this morning calling for Pete Hoekstra to end his Senate campaign. “There is no acceptable move Hoekstra can make other than to withdraw from running for the nomination,” the Board writes.”Instead of trotting out evasive half-apologies or jingoistic defenses, it’s time for Hoekstra to step aside and allow the process to continue without him. He has done more than enough already.”

Looks like we here at PeteHoekstra.com have similar opinions as the CM-Life Editorial Board:

“Hoekstra may actually believe both the content and strategy of the ad are acceptable and see no problem with them, in which case he has no business running or holding any elected office. The only other alternative is that he was unaware of the extent of the ad’s racial bias and stereotyping, that he gave into the pressure of a cut-throat campaign team, which demonstrates he lacks the spine and foresight a U.S. senator should reflexively display.”

Read the entire Editorial @ CM-Life.com.