The Republican candidate for governor stretches too far, Bridge Magazine says, by claiming the Democratic ticket "sympathizes with terrorists" and wants to get rid of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency known as ICE.
Ron French and Chastity Pratt Dawsey of the online publication, part of the nonprofit Center for Michigan, post this about GOP nominee Bill Schuette:
Truth Squad rates the claims misleading. It's also worth noting that this issue, which Republicans and their standard-bearer have spent much of the past week cynically pandering to voters on, has little to do with a governor's job duties or improving Michigan's future. . . .
Schuette says [Gretchen] Whitmer and [running mate Garlin] Gilchrist are so extreme they are "opposing immigration enforcement," "sympathizing with terrorists [and] attacking law enforcement."
This is a classic example of stringing together the very real statements of their opponents to reach conclusions that both distract and mislead voters.
The longtime journalists evaluate "a series of claims in several ads and press releases . . . [that] were condensed into a 15-second video and accompanying tweet that Schuette sent out Sept. 7."
Gretchen Whitmer and Garlin Gilchrist are the most extreme Democrat candidates in Michigan history—opposing immigration enforcement, bashing Israel, supporting Hamas. They are an extreme risk we can’t take. pic.twitter.com/jXYkTlSxPI
— Bill Schuette (@SchuetteOnDuty) September 7, 2018
A Michigan Republican Party media release.
Whitmer says she doesn't call for ICE to be disbanded.
The claim about Gilchrist is based on 2009 tweets by him about Israel and Hamas, the radical Palestinian nationalist movement. The candidate for lieutenant governor, who now supports Israel and calls Hamas a terrorist group, says he "made comments about a conflict I did not fully understand."
French and Dawsey conclude:
Ads with ominous, shadowy photos of your opponents and painting them as terrorist-sympathizing "extremists" may win a few votes in our divisive, hate-fueled political landscape. But they do little to educate voters about the consequential choice they will confront this November. The claims are misleading.
-- Alan Stamm
