Sullivan injects Fairbanks Memorial Hospital into partisan politics
HOSPITAL CAMPAIGN: The fine print on the campaign ads for Sen. Dan Sullivan featuring nothing but shots of Fairbanks Memorial Hospital says that Steve Frank is not speaking for the hospital foundation.
But most people won’t read or notice the fine print.
Frank, the treasurer of the Fairbanks Community Hospital Foundation, is a loyal Sullivan supporter and a Republican.
The ads will appear to most people who see them as an endorsement of Sullivan by Fairbanks Memorial Hospital and an attack by the hospital on challenger Mary Peltola.
That’s how they come across and that is the message the Sullivan campaign wants to spread.
The ads identify Frank as a board member and show him standing in front of the hospital, but in smaller print at the bottom the ads say he is speaking for himself and not as a board member.
The disclaimer would be credible only if the ad contained no video of the hospital, no photos of the hospital and no prominent identification of Frank as a board member.
The ads featuring the hospital are complete with phony text messages supposedly from the hospital asking for a meeting with Peltola when she was in Congress.
“Our hospital is vital to our town, can we meet soon?”
It’s part of Sullivan’s campaign strategy to claim that Peltola doesn’t care about Fairbanks.
The video includes aerial shots of the hospital and an assortment of ground-level shots including Frank and Sullivan walking outside the hospital building and gesticulating.
The audio of the ads has Frank saying that Pelotla refused to meet with representatives of the hospital and that Peltola doesn’t seem to think the hospital is vital to Fairbanks.
“Dan Sullivan is just the opposite. When we call, he answers,” Frank says. “Dan Sullivan fights for us.”
The use of “we” and “us” is deliberate and is meant to reflect not just the backing of Sullivan by Steve Frank, contrary to what the fine print claims.
The entire thrust of the ads is that the hospital leaders and the hospital were harmed by Peltola and helped by Sullivan.
It was a mistake to inject Fairbanks Memorial Hospital directly into this partisan political fight. Frank should never have agreed to it and the hospital foundation board should have objected.
This is not just because we don’t know which candidate is going to win the election.
It’s because the hospital has employees and patients with diverse political views and they need to know that the institution is not an appendage of a political party. The hospital relies on the support of people of all beliefs. This trust must not be weakened. And political ads that rely on an inconspicuous disclaimer are not enough to prevent the damage.
The values that hold a community together are far more important than the politics of the moment, regardless of who is on the ballot.
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