Yates disowns Weh

Questions have been raised about whether the leadership of the NMRP was cutting Colonel Allen Weh a little extra slack during the primary, link.

Apparently Weh will get no slack from the NMRP over his latest (dishonest) attack ad on Susana Martinez.

NMRP Chairman Harvey Yates wrote in a press release, link,

"Republicans expect honesty in government. How likely is that result, if dishonesty in campaigning is tolerated in those we elect to run government?"

The ad in question is not the first ad whose honesty has been questioned; Weh ran an ad falsely accusing Lt Gov Diane Denish of using "stimulus funds to fly to a parade" long after the error in the allegation became apparent.

Weh's response came through his Campaign Director Whitney Cheshire. She chose the "she did it first" defense, dodging the basic question of the (dis)honesty of Weh's ad, and instead ranted about the NMRP giving Susana Martinez a "free pass" in "break(ing) her word about running a negative campaign".

She then chastised Yates for interfering in a primary. She said it was harmful for the Chairman to "interfere in a primary". Note; someone ask her what Weh had to say about the Party endorsing Darren White as the candidate in CD1, link, or any of the other nastiness that went on in that Primary, link.

Cheshire went on to say;

We stand by our ad’s "accuracy".
(quotation marks added for emphasis.)

Cheshire probably doesn't make little air quotes when
she speaks these words, but she should; its pivotal.

As a Character Counts! trainer, I sometimes had difficulty explaining to children how it was possible to say something that was technically, "legally" accurate, but never the less created a misperception, and further that deliberately creating a misperception is dishonest, even if the words use to create it were "accurate".

Kids had some trouble understanding how "telling the truth" is sometimes nothing more than a clever way of "telling a lie".

They think if you don't actually "tell a lie", you haven't done anything wrong.

Voters I hope, will not share the children's boggle.


Kudos to Yates for standing up for some real Republican values.


Now if he would just come clean on the physical assault
Weh is alleged to have recently committed on
Republican Party staff member(s), link.

How is the NMRP's cover-up of that, any less dishonest
than Weh's TV spot?

Is there a double standard for candidates and Party bosses?




photo Mark Bralley