TOPEKA — The U.S. Senate campaign of Republican candidate Roger Marshall defended Wednesday an attack ad against Democrat Barbara Bollier on abortion, gun and immigration policy that relies on aggressively edited video clips of Bollier to distort her remarks about health care, public service and honesty among politicians.
The first general election commercial released by Marshall after winning the GOP nomination in August asserted Bollier sought restrictions on firearms and included video of her saying, “I’ll work to ban them nationwide.” She uttered those six words, but did so while discussing her commitment to working in the Senate to prohibit “surprise” medical bills. The Bollier nugget relied upon by Marshall had nothing to do with guns.
“I’m leading the charge to outlaw surprise bills in Kansas,” Bollier said in her July 23 campaign ad. “And, I approve this message because in Washington, I’ll work to ban them nationwide and that will come as no surprise.”
Marshall campaign spokesman Eric Pahls said the use of snippets from Bollier’s campaign messages was acceptable because the Marshall ad began with the voice-over asking: “How would it sound if Barbara Bollier’s ads actually matched her liberal record?” He said the sentence covered fairness or ethical concerns about Marshall’s use of Bollier’s comments.
“If we were trying to be sneaky, we may have left that part out,” Pahls said. “Unlike the Bollier campaign, we actually know Kansans are smart enough to understand what they’re watching.”
Alexandra De Luca, spokeswoman for Bollier‘s campaign, said the Marshall spot made a series of false assertions.
“This ad is deceptive and actually manipulates video to put words — quite literally — into Barbara’s mouth,” De Luca said. “He can’t beat Barbara on the issues, so he misleads and distorts her record instead.”
It’s clear that Congressman Marshall has learned all the wrong lessons from his friends in D.C.”
