WMUR's James Pindell checks in on moderate Republican Gary Lambert's somewhat negative barrage against conservative favorite Marilinda Garcia in the race for Ann Kuster's seat:
Republican congressional candidate Gary Lambert is set to begin his first television ads, which are a stinging attack on on his Republican opponent one month before the primary.
WMUR-TV got an exclusive preview of the 30-second ad, titled "Oath." It spends 20 seconds introducing Lambert, before switching to the issue of immigration ending with this line about his opponent, state Rep. Marilinda Garcia, R-Salem:
"Obama and Garcia. Two liberals for amnesty. Too liberal for us."
Lambert is referring to a resolution that Garcia put her name on last year as part of the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators. The resolution about the need for national comprehensive immigration reform included this section:
"WHEREAS, Legalizing the undocumented population lets us know who is living within our nation’s borders and allows our public safety representatives and first responders to focus time and resources on criminal elements intent on threatening our nation, citizens, freedoms, and way of life."
"As the record clearly shows, Marilinda Garcia supports amnesty for illegal immigrants,” said Lambert. “Representative Garcia sponsored a National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators resolution with 1 Republican and 12 Democrats which called for ‘legalizing the undocumented population.’ If that’s not amnesty, I don’t know what is.”
The resolution was adopted by the executive committee of the group in July 2013 and ratified by the entire membership last November. It is unclear how Garcia specifically voted, but she was one of 13 co-sponsors.
Garcia spokesman Kenny Cunningham rejected the premise of the ad.
"Marilinda Garcia does not support amnesty for illegal immigrants. Gary Lambert’s attempt to suggest otherwise is dishonest. He appears willing to say or do anything to get elected. Just like Barack Obama, he wants to use this issue for political purposes instead of putting real solutions on the table," Cunningham said. "The resolution cited in the ad is simply an effort by Marilinda to put a solution on the table—a solution that does not include amnesty. She believes the fact that millions of people are in the U.S. illegally, making money, not paying taxes, and often receiving taxpayer funded benefits, is a real problem. Figuring out how to deal with this problem – starting with getting them to pay their taxes -- is her goal."
The ad is set to begin airing Friday with $20,000 behind it for the first week.
The winner of the Sept. 9th primary will face first-term Democratic incumbent Annie Kuster.
Well, I think she's got my vote in the primary, since I'm registered with the Republicans and it's too late to change.