On Tuesday’s broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” network correspondent Ainsley Earhardt unveiled one of the attack radio spots that aired on stations around the state including WMGO 1370 AM in Canton, MS.
The spot urges listeners to participate in the vote and warns if voters fail to do so, it will result in the loss of entitlement benefits and funding for black universities.
“If someone tells you that by voting today, you cannot vote in November – it’s just a Tea Party, bald-faced lie.” Are you going to let the clock run out on today? By not voting, you are saying ‘take away all of my government programs, such as food stamps, early breakfast and lunch programs, millions of dollars to our black universities.’ Everything we and our families depend on that comes from Washington will be cut. Mississippi will never be the same. The question is, will you spend $5 on gas to vote, or allow the Tea Party to send us back to the good ol’ bad days? Vote against the Tea Party. Vote Thad Cochran.”
Earhart identified the group responsible for the ad to be a group called Citizens for Progress, which according to Earhart is a group tied to former RNC chair and Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS).
Partial transcript as follows:
HANNITY: Just to be clear, the owner of this radio station – because that’s race-baiting — is saying this came directly from one Republican group that was supporting Cochran against another Republican?
EARHART: Well, he told us who wrote the check. And at the end of each of those ads, it has to be connected to a group. The name of that group is Citizens for Progress. That group is associated with Haley Barbour.
HANNITY: Wow, he’s got some answering to do on that.
EARHART: Yeah, exactly.
We did reach out to both camps. Cochran camp says they’re denying all these accusations. They’re saying these are baseless and that they’re false.
HANNITY: Cochran — I don’t believe that for a minute. That’s my editorial. Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt you.
EARHART: McDaniel’s camp says they’re taking this very seriously. And they did send us a statement. Let me read the statement: “Not including the votes which were allegedly bought by the Cochran camp, our grassroots volunteers have already found around 2,500 ineligible votes. That is votes cast in the Republican runoff on June 24, by voters who voted in the Democratic primary on June 3. We are examining all the data that we can gain access to in order to launch a legal challenge. And our preliminary findings indicate that further investigation is certainly warranted after we’ve examined all the data, we will make a determination about possible legal recourse.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.