It’s election season, and while the mudslinging has started, the most famous golfer in the world, Tiger Woods, was used, albeit mistakenly, in a political ad this week. The spot calls for cop killers and mass murderers to receive the death penalty. In the ad, Woods’ 2017 DUI arrest footage was used as the primary image, which was dubbed “Just Intentional.”
Kris Kobach, the Republican nominee for Kansas attorney general, released the ad on Thursday. Kobach, who is in a race against his Democratic opponent, Chris Mann, is accusing his Democratic opponent Chris Mann of being soft on crime. Specifically, the ad alleges that Mann wouldn’t pursue the death penalty against violent criminals and those convicted of killing a single police officer.
This Kris Kobach campaign ad seems to think Tiger Woods should've been executed for his 2017 DUI. pic.twitter.com/0o4qma4MN4
— Stephen Robinson (@SER1897) October 29, 2022
In the ad, the cases of Reginald and Jonathan Carr were outlined: men on death row after killing five in a 2000 Wichita-area shooting spree, and Scott Cheever, who in 2005 shot and killed a Greenwood County sheriff’s deputy. The footage of Woods appeared roughly halfway through the ad lumping him in with acts of violence that he never committed.
“But if Chris Mann gets his way, there will be no capital punishment for cop killers,” the ad’s narrator said, cutting to an image of the Woods arrest.
The footage came from the police dashcam video of Woods being arrested in 2017 and flanked by two Florida sheriff’s deputies. Woods was initially stopped and booked for a DUI, eventually pleading guilty to one count of reckless driving, and was given probation.
According to Danedri Herbert, Kobach’s spokesperson, the ad agency the campaign hired was to blame for the error, and apparently, the footage’s inclusion was a mistake. However, they claim that it was fixed within minutes once they caught it. The versions of the ad shared by the Kobach campaign on social media didn’t feature the footage of Woods.
Tiger Woods Popped Up in Political Ad for the Death Penalty pic.twitter.com/A1L40MZQH3
— TMSPN.com (@SportsGossipOG) October 31, 2022
“What a happy accident that media is going to pick this up and expose Chris Mann as a soft-on-crime liberal Democrat who will let cop killers and mass murderers off easy for their heinous crimes,” Herbert continued.
Subsequently, a new ad was cut that replaced the footage of Woods with images of a prison inmate in a swap-out that shows the creation of a fearful environment means anyone can be inserted into the narrative.
Kelli Kee, Mann’s spokesperson, said in a statement that the ad was “absolutely false and deceptive.”
“He needs to take down the ad,” Kee said to The Topeka Capital-Journal. “Chris Mann is a former cop who was injured in the line of duty. Kris Kobach has no shame in the lies he’ll tell to win political power.”
At a Tuesday debate, Mann, a former Lawrence, Kansas, Police Department officer and prosecutor, now in private practice, said that while he opposes the death penalty, his job is to enforce the law.
“I have never said I would not use the death penalty,” Mann said during the debate.
No word from Tiger Woods on how he feels or if he plans on doing anything to include his image in the polarizing ad.
