Republican Governors Association Attack Ad Flunks Fact Checks

Will Ehrlich Ask D.C. Republicans to Retract Their Dishonest Ad?

Annapolis, MD - Independent media outlets are questioning the dishonest and misleading claims in the latest RGA-funded attack ad, leading the Maryland Democratic Party to wonder: will Bob Ehrlich ask his Republicans allies in Washington, D.C., to pull down their dishonest attack?

Both TBD and The Baltimore Sun ran articles yesterday questioning the truthfulness of the out-of-state attack ad currently running on Ehrlich's behalf.

"Bob Ehrlich's national Republican allies are misleading Maryland voters with a factually-inaccurate and dishonest attack ad, and independent media outlets are calling him out on it," said Travis Tazelaar, Maryland Democratic Party Executive Director."The only question now is whether Bob Ehrlich will do the honorable thing and demand that national Republicans pull their dishonest ad until they can get their facts straight."

According to TBD, the RGA "doesn't have all their facts straight," noting that the RGA is "placing the blame on O'Malley" for the national recession, when in fact "a case can be made that Maryland is managing the recession - which state policy didn't cause - better than most." TBD goes on to point out flat-out inaccuracies in two of the ad's major claims about O'Malley's record.

The Baltimore Sun's Second Opinion column took a similarly skeptical view of the RGA ad, noting that "unemployment in Maryland, despite an uptick reported today, is still well lower than the national average, and personal income in the state is above pre-recession levels, a distinction Maryland shares with just one other state."

The Sun also took issue with a misleading claim in Ehrlich's own ad: "the 'massive tax increase' is conjecture on Mr. Ehrlich's part. No Democratic leaders, and certainly not Mr. O'Malley, have announced any such plan."

In contrast, the Sun upheld the O'Malley campaign's factual claims about Bob Ehrlich, writing that the "claims about [Ehrlich's] record in the [O'Malley] ad are true - in addition to the property tax increase in his first year in office, Mr. Ehrlich raised a wide variety of fees, most prominently car registration fees and tolls, and enacted the 'flush tax,' which assesses a fee to help pay for upgrades to Chesapeake Bay-polluting sewage treatment plants."