Playing Ethnic Politics

Saw this ad in Hamodia as well as the Yated over Shabbos, and I'd meaning to post it as soon as I got to the office (home scanner's on the fritz), but Ben beat me to it. It was quite an interesting pitch for Eliot Spitzer's gubernatorial candidacy, one clearly aimed at the Orthodox and Charedi segment of New York voters. The ad copy reads in part:

Rejecting a job applicant or firing an employee because he's Shomer Shabbos is illegal - yet Sears Roebuck rejected Kalman Katz, and Virgin Atlantic Airways fired Avraham Abada.

Firing a barber because he wears a yarmulka is illegal - yet Jean Louis David fired Eliezer Katanov.

Penalizing a student because she refuses to dress immodestly is illegal - yet the New York College for Osteopathic Medicine punished Dina Loketch.

What stopped these injustices was New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

It also includes a photo (above) of a Chassidic Jew with beard and long curly sidelocks, wearing a work uniform emblazoned with the nametag "Kalman". The copy includes plugs from Agudath Israel and The Orthodox Union praising him for his record in fighting for the rights of Sabbath observers. With the full-page ad placed in Ultra-Orthodox publications, his campaign is certainly playing to right audience in this particular case - as opposed to some mishaps that I recall another area candidate encountering when he tried to play the ethnic politics game a few months back.