A recent Colorado Politics story reported on Denver TV stations pulling a political ad against Jared Polis that was truly vile. It was placed by an organization ironically named “Colorado Citizens for Truth,” which came into existence on Oct 9. Full disclosure: I know Jared a bit, and I support his campaign. So, you can imagine my shock when I saw the ad aired on my local Colorado Springs station. The ad was a hit piece against Jared, which is normally fine. But the people behind “Colorado Citizens for Truth” went way beyond any normal negative ad and ventured into outright falsehoods and deeply misleading statements.

A Google search for the group turns up no website. If you take a look at the Colorado secretary of state’s Tracer page, where you can look up political action committees, you learn very little. The “organization” shows a Denver street address but no donations and no expenditures. It also shows a phone number and email address for the group’s registered agent. Further CP reporting showed the organization spent $700,000 to air the deceptive ad.

The ad itself is shocking, telling about Mr. Polis’s supposed attack on a female employee. The narrator, in a worrisome tone, breathlessly reports that the police were called, and only Mr. Polis’s “big gun lawyers” stopped the horrible scandal from becoming public. In the era of #metoo, this ad presents the incident in terms that suggest Mr. Polis was engaged in domestic or workplace violence and worse. Mr. Polis was the subject of a restraining order, and oh my.

But, as John Adams famously said, facts are stubborn things. And in this #metoo era, it is beyond vile to use the language of sexual assault in a false charge against a person seeking office. It didn’t take long for several news organizations, including Colorado Politics, to get to the bottom of the story. You can read all the details at CP, but basically, Mr. Polis had an employee that was stealing from him. She tried to leave when confronted (with cops on the way) and he blocked her exit. She struck him, and he restrained her, according to the actual police report. She filed for a restraining order, which was quickly dismissed as bogus. Oh, and those “big gun lawyers?” It was the local DA’s office, and the employee was, in fact, convicted of theft and no charges at all were filed against Mr. Polis.

Mr. Polis has many supporters and Mr. Stapleton has many as well. Both gentlemen have taken positions that offer ample fodder for reasonable and appropriate opposition in the media. I can’t help but think that the deeply abhorrent and false ad referenced above comes from desperation, as the polls show Mr. Polis pulling ahead.

But more largely, what does this say about the electorate? Many years ago, in grad school, where I studied political advertising, I learned that negative ads tend to only be effective if they are not countered. Think John Kerry declining to hit back against the “swift boat” nonsense and you’ll see what I mean. Studies show that voters only internalize negative ads when they are not refuted. In this case, it was the media itself that rebutted the ad, but often times, the task falls to the campaign that was attacked, and such responses cost money and time. And when you are forced to air advertisements that counter a bogus charge, you are not airing ads that advance your issue positions. Perhaps that is the goal from the folks from Georgia all along. But they got caught by a free and open press with their hands in the campaign cookie jar.

Thus, it is deeply troubling to hear that a recent poll showed that nearly half – 43 percent – of Trump supporters think the president should have the power to shut down media outlets he finds unfair, and 48 percent of his supporters see the press as the enemy of the people.

We may, I hope, have dodged a negative ad bullet from Georgia, thanks to a free and open press. But what about tomorrow? In Mr. Trump’s ideal world, we would not have the same protections. And that scares me.