ALIPAC: Group says it plans anti-Graham immigration ads
Group says it plans anti-Graham immigration ads
Mon, Oct. 27, 2008
By JIM DAVENPORT - Associated Press Writer
The State, SC
COLUMBIA, S.C. --A group supporting U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham's opponent in next week's election said Monday it would pay to broadcast ads showing the Republican senator referring to immigration critics as "bigots."
The ad shows him telling a Latino group that supporters of a 2007 immigration law overhaul effort were "going to tell the bigots to shut up."
But Graham's campaign manager Scott Farmer says the ad takes out of context remarks the first-term senator made last year as he played a central role in pushing an immigration reform bill that never made it out of the Senate. And he doubts the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC can afford to do much beyond getting reporters to write about the ad.
The group's most recent Federal Election Commission report shows it had $15,350 in cash on hand at the end of September. "I don't know what TV or radio that can buy," Farmer said.
William Gheen, the PAC's president, would provide no details about how much would be spent on ads billed as an "urgent warning for South Carolina voters" about "Graham's support for amnesty for illegal aliens."
Gheen said he was raising money and buying time on stations in Upstate counties around Charlotte and on the coast from Myrtle Beach to Hilton Head Island.
The ad shows Graham saying in the speech "no group owns being American. ... We are not going to scapegoat people. We're going to tell the bigots to shut up."
Gheen said Graham's comments to the National Council of La Raza in 2007 brought down his approval rating at the time and should tighten the race between Graham and Democrat Bob Conley, whom the group already has endorsed.
"Lindsey Graham and South Carolina are not a good match," Gheen said.
"I appreciate their support," Conley campaign manager Lee Griggs said. "They wish to see the immigration problem resolved as much as Mr. Conley does."
Farmer said the remarks are taken out of context and came at a time that Graham was reacting to the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups as they capitalized on illegal immigration to recruit members.
Graham wrapped up the speech praising a Latino noncommissioned officer, Dan Garza, who showed him the ropes when he was stationed as a captain at Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter.
"And on behalf of the Dan Garzas in the world, we are going to solve this problem," Graham said. "We're not going to run people down. We're not going to scapegoat people. We're going to tell the bigots to shut up. And we're going to get this right."
http://www.thestate.com/scpolitics-wire ... 69123.html
