Roundhouse Roundup: Just the Factcheck, Ma'am

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
May 27, 2010

The increasingly bitter Republican gubernatorial primary and the attack ads of Susana Martinez and Allen Weh have caught the attention of FactCheck.org, a nonprofit website that “aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics.”

“We can’t recall a time when a candidate’s ad was denounced as misleading and dishonest by the head of his own party,” said an article by FactCheck staffers Eugene Kiely and Viveca Novak. “But that’s what has happened in New Mexico.”

That’s a reference to state GOP chairman Harvey Yates, who on Sunday scolded Weh for his recent attack ad against Martinez — the one that alleged Martinez was “caught red-handed” not paying taxes and spent taxpayer dollars on iPods and meals at Hooters.

In the same news release, Yates also said Martinez’s ad attacking Weh for supporting “amnesty” for illegal immigrants was not untruthful and “reasonably supported.”

“All this got our attention, so we conducted our own review,” Kiely and Novak wrote. “Our conclusion: Yates is right. The Weh ad is indeed a gross distortion of the truth.”

However, concerning Yates’ favorable verdict on Martinez’s “amnesty” ad, FactCheck disagreed.

“It’s true that Weh supported the same approach that was backed by President George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain, the party’s 2008 nominee for president, in an immigration bill in 2006,” the article said. “And many Republicans still characterize that bill as providing ‘amnesty’ for illegal immigrants. But as we have long pointed out, ‘amnesty’ is an emotion-laden word that does not accurately describe what the bill would have provided, or what Weh was supporting.”

“We think there’s plenty of evidence to find guilt on both sides,” Kiely and Novak conclude.

FactCheck.org is a creature of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.

Enchanted Land no stranger to FactCheck: It’s been a while since New Mexico politicians showed up on FactCheck.org. I believe the most recent time before Wednesday was two years ago, when the site criticized attacks by Steve Pearce and an anti-abortion group supporting his Senate bid against Heather Wilson in the Republican U.S. Senate primary.

Back when he was running for president, the current governor made frequent appearances in FactCheck.org articles. “New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson added to his string of inflated, false or dubious claims,” the website said following a presidential debate in December 2007. “Democrat Bill Richardson also mangled the facts repeatedly,” FactCheck said in a ‘year-in-review” piece later that month.

State chairmen as referees: While it indeed is unusual for a state party chairman to get involved in a negative ad mudfest during a primary, Yates isn’t the first to do so.

Back in 2002, when Diane Denish and Jerry Sandel were duking it out for Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor with tough television ads, then state Democratic chairman Jamie Koch stepped in.

The big difference between Koch’s intervention and Yates’ is that Koch didn’t take sides. Everyone assumed that he favored Denish because he was a business partner with her father, the late Jack Daniels. But the letter Koch sent to both campaigns revealed no bias.

“Our candidates are strong enough to run on their own records without having to attack another good Democrat,” Koch said. “I’m not going to get into who started what first and who’s to blame for these negative ads. I’m just going to ask that it cease.”

He couldn’t resist a partisan jab, writing, “We don’t want to descend to the level of Republicans, some of whom don’t seem to mind lying about each other’s record to get elected.” (At the time eventual GOP gubernatorial nominee John Sanchez was running ads linking Republican opponent Walter Bradley to state Senate powerhouse Manny Aragon, a Democrat -- and one who currently is in federal prison for corruption charges.)

But neither Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor heeded Koch’s words. Denish went on to become Richardson’s running mate, and now she’s running for governor.

Kokesh Tells Yates to Play Fair

Adam Kokesh, running in the Republican primary for the 3rd Congressional District, wrote a letter to state GOP chairman Harvey Yates today. Kokesh asked Yates asking why the state party isn't criticizing his primary opponent Tom Mullins for "false statements" and "slander."

The letter was spurred by Yates' recent public condemnation of gubernatorial candidate Allen Weh for his attack ad against rival Susana Martinez.

Here's the letter:

Chairman Yates,

Recently, you took a stand against conduct by one of our gubernatorial candidates that you determined to be dishonest. In a statement regarding the issue you said, "Republicans expect honesty in government. How likely is that result, if dishonesty in campaigning is tolerated in those we elect to run government?" While this is true, your conduct hardly reflects a commitment to honesty.

At the state party convention, you took no action against supporters of my primary opponent, Tom Mullins, when they circulated smear cards against against me which violated party rules, and as they lacked attribution, constituted a fourth degree felony under NM law. You then failed to follow state law in regards to the rounding of the vote total. Among those who knew what happened, your integrity failed.

Long before he resigned as San Juan County GOP Chair to more openly support my primary opponent and slander me publicly, Rod Montoya had been openly supporting my opponent. When we asked to meet with a representative of the Mullins campaign after he announced, he sent Montoya to speak on his behalf. When this was brought to your attention, you made the lame excuse that if a party official is supporting a candidate on "personal time" it does not violate the party rules of neutrality.

My opponent has also made deliberately false statements about me personally, and you have remained silent. According to the Albuquerque Journal, he even falsely claimed that I have never voted in New Mexico. He has publicly stated that I have "never held a real job." When Mullins made a statement to that effect on his blog, many veterans were deeply offended, and he was forced to constantly delete comments calling him out for this shameless attack. I can assure you that serving in combat with the United States Marine Corps in Fallujah was a real job!

It is time to speak out if you want to show that you are not just playing favorites and salvage your own integrity. If you believe that it is your role to police the conduct of candidates, please lead by example and join me in condemning Mullin's negative campaigning with false statements that threaten our ability to unseat Ben Ray Lujan. For the sake of the party, let us focus on how we can better meet the concerns of voters regarding jobs and the economy so that we can take back our state in November.

Sincerely,

Adam Kokesh
Proud Republican candidate to represent New Mexico's 3rd Congressional District

UPDATE: This letter was sent only to Yates and Republican county chairs.

GOP Chair Calls Weh Ad "Dishonest"

When I interviewed Allen Weh a couple of weeks ago, the GOP gubernatorial hopeful reminded me that while he was state Republican Party chairman he sometimes had to call out members of his his own party

Today, his successor, current GOP Chairman Harvey Yates basically called out Weh for his recent attack ad on primary rival Susana Martinez. Yates also said Martinez's ad attacking Weh for his immigration position wasn't untruthful.

Here's a press release from the party that went out this morning.

After receiving complaints from several Republicans regarding ads being run by two leading Republican gubernatorial candidates, Republican State Party Chairman, Harvey E. Yates, Jr., assembled a committee to examine the ads. Documents supporting their ads were requested from both Susana Martinez and Allen Weh. The documents were examined to determine whether the ads were truthful.

It was found that the documents furnished by the Susana Martinez reasonably supported her ad regarding Allen Weh’s earlier position on amnesty. However, it was found that the documents to which the committee was directed by Allen Weh did not reasonably support either his radio or TV ad.

In Mr. Weh’s ad he suggests that Ms. Martinez has not paid her taxes. No support for that was found in the documents. Mr. Weh’s ads imply that Ms. Martinez has misused public funds in a variety of ways. Yet, an examination of the documents not only did not substantiate that claim, the examination results suggest that Ms. Martinez has handled public funds properly. In short, the effort undertaken revealed that Mr. Weh’s recent radio and TV ads are misleading.

In regard to the above Chairman Yates stated the following: "Dishonesty in political advertising should not be tolerated in either party. I believe it to be quite unfortunate that one of the Republican gubernatorial candidates has issued ads which are so misleading. I note that when Mr. Weh accuses Ms. Martinez of failure to pay her taxes, this can be taken as suggesting possible felonious conduct on the part of Ms. Martinez. This suggestion by Mr. Weh, without clear evidence, is inappropriate."

Mr. Yates continued, "Republicans expect honesty in government. How likely is that result, if dishonesty in campaigning is tolerated in those we elect to run government?"

UPDATE: Weh's campaign just sent me this response from campaign manager Whitney Cheshire.

Instead of letting rank and file Republicans think and speak for themselves, which thankfully will occur on election day, a group of self-appointed party insiders has wrongly and inexplicably decided to give Susana Martinez a free pass when it comes to keeping her word about running a negative campaign.

The Chairman’s biased interference in a primary contest is harmful to the Republican Party and wrong for our state.

Sadly, they even deny the indisputable fact reported by the Albuquerque Journal and Las Cruces Sun-News today that Susana Martinez launched the first negative salvo in this race. They also directly contradict President George W. Bush’s White House position on immigration reform. Regretfully, they would not even meet with our campaign to hear our arguments.

Fortunately, rank and file Republicans – not party bosses and the media – will decide who wins this nomination, and we further believe their choice will be a successful businessman who has created jobs, not a career politician whose only real professional experience is as a government lawyer.

We stand by our ad’s accuracy. Mrs. Martinez’s multiple ads falsely accusing Allen Weh of supporting amnesty are fundamentally dishonest and misleading.