The Senate Leadership Fund ad includes a song with the chorus: 'If he'll screw his own family, he'll screw yours, too.'
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A new attack ad from a Republican political action committee has hit Maine’s airwaves and is already facing calls for it to “be taken down immediately.”
The 60-second ad in the form of a song attacking Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Troy Jackson, which starts with a piano riff followed by country music, began making the rounds on social media Tuesday. The chorus includes the line, “If he’ll screw his own family, he’ll screw yours, too.”
Troy Jackson and his partner are reportedly second cousins, which means they share a great-grandparent. Their relationship is legal across the country.
The ad was funded by the Republican-supporting Senate Leadership Fund PAC. It was not immediately clear how much money the SLF put behind the radio ad. But according to the ad tracking firm AdImpact, the group’s radio buy for all ads for the month of October so far eclipsed $405,000 as of Tuesday.
Shawn Roderick, a spokesperson for Sen. Susan Collins’ campaign, called for the ad to “be taken down immediately” on Tuesday.
“Senator Collins believes there have been far too many personal attacks in this campaign,” Roderick said in a written statement. “This ad has nothing to do with Troy Jackson’s qualifications for the job and should be taken down immediately.”
Jackson’s campaign called on Collins to apologize for the ad.
“If Collins believes these attacks are wrong, she owes Troy’s family an apology for spreading them herself and must take responsibility for her allies pushing the same personal attack on his family on TV right now,” Jackson campaign spokesman Dan Gottlieb said in an email late Tuesday. “Mainers deserve a debate about their futures, not a campaign dragging a family through the mud.”
Collins had been asked about Jackson’s personal life in an interview with Politico that was released on Sept 2.
Politico’s Jonathan Martin asked Collins if the circumstances of Jackson’s “personal life and the mother of his children (should) be relevant to this campaign.”
“Well, I’m not going to bring up the fact that the mother of his two children is his second cousin,” Collins said. “I don’t know whether people know that or not. … It’s not something I’m going to be emphasizing.”
No state in the U.S. prohibits people from marrying their second cousin; Jackson and his partner are not married.
Spokespeople for the SLF did not respond Tuesday night to a request for comment on the ad or the calls by Collins’ campaign to take it down.
Drew is the night reporter for the Portland Press Herald. He previously covered South Portland, Scarborough and Cape Elizabeth for the Sentry, Leader and Southern Forecaster. Though he is from Massachusetts,... More by Drew Johnson