‘Torture Porn’ Actor in Wolf’s Ad Fitting of Nasty Race for Governor

By Andrew Staub | PA Independent

Tom Wolf, the York County businessman that polls suggest will be the next Pennsylvania governor, recently aired a campaign ad that featured an actor who played “Mr. Cannibal” in “Breeding Farm” — a disturbing horror film with kidnapping, half-naked women and torture.

That’s the word from BuzzFeed, which broke the story earlier this week and left the Wolf campaign scrambling to edit the ad.

It’s a dirty development that doesn’t have a heckuva lot to do with actual policy platforms or governance, but the revelation falls in line with a race that long ago veered into the nasty as Republican incumbent Gov. Tom Corbett fights for his political life against steep odds.

And we thought it was bad enough when the candidates went negative over tax policies, education funding and each other’s association with convicted criminals who were allegedly public servants when their misdeeds occurred.

Those were simpler, more innocent times, when a film labeled as “torture porn” wasn’t part of the race for Pennsylvania’s highest office.

Well, perhaps that’s only if you don’t count the reportedly sexually explicit emails that were apparently circulated among staffers in the Attorney General’s Office when Corbett was in charge. First, he said he wasn’t aware of them, but his campaign soon had to walk back those statements.

OK, so maybe the race lost its PG-13 rating before Wolf’s unfortunate commercial. Still, we were used to less explicit attacks, like the allegations Corbett harbored a ghost employee in the Department of Education and the criticism over Wolf’s refusal to release corporate tax returns after indicating he’d be willing to share the information.

Just last week, the Fresh Start PAC — working to elect Wolf — teed off on Corbett after the man he referred to as a “role model,” former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, was convicted along with his wife on public corruption charges.

McDonnell in 2010 headlined big-money fundraisers for Corbett when he was running for his first term. The disgraced former governor also attended the GOP’s annual Lincoln Dinner in 2013.

Money raised by McDonnell should be returned, Fresh Start PAC spokesman Mike Mikus said.

“By keeping the money raised by a convicted criminal, Tom Corbett and his political party will send a message to Pennsylvanians that they care more about winning than running an ethical campaign,” Mikus said in a statement.

That attack, of course, opened the door for questions about Wolf’s own well-documented acquaintance with a convict, former state Rep. Stephen Stetler. He served 16 months in prison on a public corruption conviction of his own, and Wolf helped raise money for his defense fund and served as a character witness for him.

“It’s absolutely a matter of hypocrisy,” Corbett campaign spokesman Billy Pitman said of Fresh Start’s McDonnell criticism, later adding that the governor won’t bend to Fresh Start PAC’s request.

When a reporter compared the McDonnell and Stetler situations, Mikus responded that “it’s not a double-edged sword or anything” to criticize Corbett for his relationship with a convicted former public official.

That can be debated. The fact the campaign has devolved into near-daily mud-slinging cannot.

G. Terry Madonna, a pollster and professor of political science at Franklin and Marshall College, said when considering something such as connections to McDonnell and Stetler, voters probably don’t care unless a candidate is directly involved with wrongdoing.

Still, that probably won’t stop either campaign from throwing more dirt against the wall just to see what sticks against their opponent, he said. And with all the money in the race, Madonna believes it’ll only get more intense.

“It’s not going to end, but it’s not going to largely determine the outcome of an election,” he said.

In this case, Corbett’s attempts to cut into his challenger’s lead have done little more than perpetuate a rough-and-tumble race. Wolf holds a commanding 25-point lead, according to the latest Franklin & Marshall College Poll.

With Corbett so unpopular, Wolf doesn’t have to be the best candidate, just an acceptable alternative to the incumbent, Madonna said. And with such a large lead, he’ll probably leave most of the attacking to surrogates, such as Fresh Start PAC, Madonna said.

The last thing Wolf wants is to walk into a major gaffe, Madonna said. He had been doing well in that regard most of the campaign. Then things got weird Monday the minute BuzzFeed introduced Pennsylvania politicos to “Breeding Farm.”

Famous for driving his Jeep during the campaign, Wolf turned to other Jeep owners to appear in the ad. One of them just happened to be Alan Benyak, a lawyer and actor who played Mr. Cannibal.

That left a campaign that notched a resounding primary victory through the power of TV editing its latest commercial and tweeting it wasn’t aware of the actor’s involvement in the twisted movie.

It was a September shock for sure. God only knows what absurdity an October surprise could bring.

Staub can be reached at Andrew@PAIndependent.com. Follow @PAIndependent on Twitter for more.