Meg Whitman Claims Her Campaign Ads Don’t Show Border Fence (They Do)
Politico writes an article today entitled “Immigration pushes Meg Whitman rightward,” detailing how primaries force Republican candidates to trend more and more conservative than their original intent (the piece focuses on immigration but there’s also John McCain’s DADT flip-flop). But it’s the first few paragraphs that contain the biggest kicker – Jonathan Martin recounts a discussion California GOP gubernatorial candidate Whitman had with the site in which she accused her opponent Steve Poizner of “playing hot-button politics with the divisive issue of immigration” by using images of a border fence, something she would never do. Oh really?
Unfortunately for Whitman, it turned out that the reporter had watched many more campaign ads than she had (actually, I suppose, that’s unfortunate for both of them). He quickly pointed it out in what the site describes (presumably employing massive understatement) as an “awkward exchange”:
“You haven’t seen an ad from me with the border fence,” Whitman told POLITICO. “That has been Steve’s campaign. My campaign has been around jobs and spending and education.”
Actually, the reporter reminded Whitman, her campaign ads do feature a shot of the fence—a potent image used by lots of Republican ads this year to show they are ready to crack down on illegal immigrants.
“I don’t think so,” Whitman replied.
It fell to the candidate’s press secretary to settle the dispute, correcting the boss and confirming the fence image.
We can’t really blame Whitman for not watching her own campaign ads (she’s probably to busy running her porn empire). However, below, you can see what she was missing. Yeah, only the slightest mention of a fence in there.
