(Bumped, for BenGoshi - promoted by mooncat)
Don't ya love Republican runoff fights ? Things are quiet up here in the 5th district, but Jay Love and Harri Anne Smith are mixing it up pretty good down in the 2nd. First it was the dueling tax ads, now Harri Anne's media advisors have dragged Gov. Riley into the mud -- or at least video of him. The ad, which began airing over the weekend, accuses Love of catering to oil companies when he helped vote down Riley's proposal earlier this year to sharply raise taxes on offshore natural gas wells. It uses footage from a video news release Riley produced in March and blends it with other material to suggest that Riley is personally criticizing Love. "When you put the interests of big oil over the people of Alabama..." Riley says in the ad before a narrator interrupts and says: "Who did? Jay Love did. With big oil reporting billions of dollars in profits and continuing to increase the price of gasoline, Jay Love voted against making big oil pay their fair share." "What they did is unconscionable," Riley continues before the narrator ends with, "Jay Love: higher taxes and gas prices for you, tax breaks for big oil."
It looks enough like the governor is taking Love to task that Bob Riley felt the need to reiterate that he is not officially endorsing either Love or Smith in the runoff. The bill discussed in the ad concerned a natural gas surtax that would have hit Exxon/Mobil hard. Love voted to kill it in committee - big surprise. Although her ad criticises Love for that vote, Smith has declined to state how she would have voted if the bill had made it to the Senate floor. That makes the contrast less effective, but I guess it keeps the door open for some Big Oil money if she makes it to the general election -- or for some Big Oil money to her state Senate campaign if she doesn't. |
