{"id":17661,"date":"2010-05-24T01:09:32","date_gmt":"2010-05-24T07:09:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=17661"},"modified":"2010-05-25T07:31:05","modified_gmt":"2010-05-25T13:31:05","slug":"gop-chairman-calls-out-weh-over-%e2%80%98misleading%e2%80%99-ads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/05\/gop-chairman-calls-out-weh-over-%e2%80%98misleading%e2%80%99-ads\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP chairman calls out Weh over \u2018misleading\u2019 ads"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Allen Weh<\/p><\/div>\n

The chairman of the Republican Party of New Mexico<\/a> says he can\u2019t ignore dishonesty in his own party any more than he can in the Democratic Party, and that\u2019s why he\u2019s calling out GOP gubernatorial candidate Allen Weh<\/a> for running misleading ads attacking opponent Susana Martinez<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The criticism \u2013 a highly unusual step for a party chair \u2013 comes a little more than a week before the primary and as the race has degraded into a nasty battle between Martinez and Weh.<\/p>\n

Citing the fact that the party has spent months asking voters to restore honesty and ethics in Santa Fe by electing Republican candidates, GOP Chairman Harvey E. Yates said Sunday in an interview that he had no choice but to call out Weh after Weh refused to stop airing false attack ads on radio and TV against Martinez.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we can\u2019t get this message through that we\u2019re going to stand for honesty, then why have we been talking about it?\u201d Yates asked.<\/p>\n

The chairman said he called a committee of three people \u2013 including himself \u2013 to examine complaints about negative ads Martinez and Weh were running. The committee asked both campaigns for supporting evidence for their ads. After reviewing the documentation, the committee found Martinez\u2019s ad<\/a> \u2013 which accused Weh of supporting amnesty \u2013 to be \u201creasonably supported\u201d by the documentation Martinez provided, a news release from Yates said.<\/p>\n

But Weh\u2019s ads<\/a>, which accuse Martinez of not paying taxes, were different. From Yates\u2019 news release:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Mr. Weh\u2019s ad he suggests that Ms. Martinez has not paid her taxes. No support for that was found in the documents. Mr. Weh\u2019s ads imply that Ms. Martinez has misused public funds in a variety of ways.\u00a0Yet, 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\u2019s recent radio and TV ads are misleading.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yates\u2019 release was sent from his personal e-mail account, not a state GOP address.<\/p>\n

Yates said in the release that the tax claim was especially concerning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d Yates said.<\/p>\n

\u201cRepublicans expect honesty in government,\u201d he said. \u201cHow likely is that result if dishonesty in campaigning is tolerated in those we elect to run government?\u201d<\/p>\n

Weh accuses Yates of being \u2018biased\u2019<\/h3>\n

Weh was harsh in his response, which came from Campaign Manager Whitney Cheshire.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead 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,\u201d Cheshire said in a news release.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cThe chairman\u2019s biased interference in a primary contest is harmful to the Republican Party and wrong for our state,\u201d said Cheshire, a former columnist for this site. \u201cWe stand by our ad\u2019s accuracy. Mrs. Martinez\u2019s multiple ads falsely accusing Allen Weh of supporting amnesty are fundamentally dishonest and misleading.\u201d<\/p>\n

Debunking Weh\u2019s TV ad<\/h3>\n

Weh\u2019s TV ad states that Martinez \u201cfailed to pay taxes.\u201d That statement is prefaced by a claim that auditors \u201ccaught her red handed,\u201d and then the ad goes on to say, \u201cLook how Martinez spends our tax dollars: extravagant dinners, luxury hotels, dinner at Hooters \u2013 even iPods. Wasting money, breaking the rules. Career politician Susana Martinez. A false campaign, unpaid taxes, bad judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n

To back up the claims in its TV and radio ads, the Weh campaign provided me with a fact sheet<\/a>, the 3rd Judicial District Attorney\u2019s 2008 audit report<\/a> and receipts<\/a> documenting travel expenses for the 3rd District office. I assume these are the same documents that were provided to Yates.<\/p>\n

The audit report found that Martinez\u2019s office paid some people to destroy old documents as contractors when they should have been paid as employees. Paying them as employees would have required that Martinez\u2019s office pay Federal Insurance Contributions Act tax<\/a>. That\u2019s the basis for the \u201cunpaid taxes\u201d claim.<\/p>\n

But instead of explaining that, the ads present the tax issue as either a claim that Martinez avoided personal taxes, or that her office\u2019s failure to pay taxes somehow involved \u201cextravagant dinners, luxury hotels, dinner at Hooters \u2013 even iPods.\u201d Neither is supported by documents provided by the Weh campaign.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Susana Martinez<\/p><\/div>\n

The Martinez campaign said hiring contractors to destroy records was approved by the state Department of Finance and Administration two years in a row before an auditor determined they should have been paid as employees.<\/p>\n

As for the travel expenses, Martinez noted that DFA also approved those reimbursements, which all fell within allowable costs. No alcohol costs were reimbursed. The iPods, Martinez said, \u201care used for listening to witness and defendant statements and jail phone calls,\u201d and listening to such audio recordings has helped lead to convictions.<\/p>\n

Though Martinez attacked first, she has been on the warpath<\/a> since Weh started airing his negative ads, decrying them as false and challenging Weh to release his taxes<\/a> to prove he\u2019s paid them \u2013 a challenge Weh has ignored<\/a>. Martinez released hers<\/a> to prove Weh\u2019s ads wrong.<\/p>\n

\u2018We\u2019ve got to be honest\u2019<\/h3>\n

In the interview, Yates said he knows his statements could be used against Weh and Republicans in the general election if Weh wins the primary.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is a very difficult thing. You\u2019re up against a wall and you have a decision to make,\u201d he said. \u201cDo you stand up for honesty and say you\u2019ve got to be honest, or do you back off because there may be some adverse impact on the Republican Party?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy view is that we\u2019ve got to take a longer view. We\u2019ve got to be honest, and we\u2019ve got to insist that the Democrats are,\u201d he said. \u201cI would just urge everybody to move toward doing things that are clearly honest. Let\u2019s win our elections \u2013 whichever side \u2013 by stating facts honestly and letting the people decide.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yates said the committee started out by asking Weh to stop airing the false ads. The Weh campaign made \u201ca suggestion\u201d it would stop airing the ads, Yates said, but Weh failed to provide evidence that it had told TV stations to stop airing the ads and a written pledge to not air misleading ads in the future.<\/p>\n

Weh campaign spokesman Christopher Sanchez hasn\u2019t responded to an e-mail asking if Weh had agreed to take down the ads.<\/p>\n

Yates said the campaign\u2019s failure to provide proof it was stopping the ads and a written pledge that it wouldn\u2019t air more dishonest ads led him to make his public statement. But he said his criticism of Weh isn\u2019t an endorsement of Martinez \u2013 or a statement of opposition to Weh\u2019s candidacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not going in this case against Allen Weh,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are just saying use honest ads, and if this had been Susana Martinez we would have done the same thing, or anyone else. \u2026 If people were going to vote for Allen Weh, they need to go on and do that, and we\u2019re certainly not endorsing other candidates.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The chairman of the Republican Party of New Mexico says he can\u2019t ignore dishonesty in his own party any more than he can in the Democratic Party, and that\u2019s why he\u2019s calling out GOP gubernatorial candidate Allen Weh for running misleading ads attacking opponent Susana Martinez.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[108,107],"class_list":["post-17661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-2010-election","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17661\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}