Former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford’s campaign for U.S. Congress released the following statement in response to the recently-released radio ad by his Democratic opponent Elizabeth Colbert-Busch.
“Elizabeth Colbert Busch seems to be running a stealth campaign. Rather than commit to a robust debate schedule, she hides behind a negative radio ad with some very unfortunate overtones. She won’t answer questions posed to her campaign about where her loyalties lie. It’s incredible that she is being allowed to get away with accepting money from the people who tried to take Boeing jobs away from South Carolina, but we believe in the end people will see through her attempts to hide from voters and public scrutiny.”
The Colbert-Busch ad, with highly-controversial racial overtones is set to the music of Shaft and accuses the Republican Party of not “want[ing] African-Americans to vote,” and Sanford of “cutting education…job-training…[and] healthcare.”
Sanford’s campaign also released a statement charging Colbert-Busch with “doing is a real disservice to the people in this district.” Seeming to calculate that the most biting response would be to ignore the substance of Colbert’ Busch’s ad, Sanford changes the subject to his opponent’s turning down of debate invitations.
“I think what my opponent is doing is a real disservice to the people in this district, and it’s a real contrast to the race myself and previous opponents ran in the GOP primary, in which we were all out interacting on an almost daily basis with voters from across the district, answering their questions publicly and directly. Here, we have a candidate who is running what some would call a stealth campaign – dodging debates and public appearances, and refusing to answer one of this campaign’s central questions: is she on the side of those who would create jobs in South Carolina, or the side of those who would seek to take them away? We hope that my opponent will eventually step forward and provide a direct answer to the question of whether she supports the goals of the IAMAW, the very union that sought to force Boeing to leave South Carolina – and quite frankly a host of other questions that are arising from her actions.”
Audio of the original radio ad can be heard below.
