Tag search result

The Republican Governors Association is planning a new ad campaign in North Carolina.

Set to begin Friday, the new campaign follows criticism of the association's last ad that caused two TV stations to pull it from the air. WLOS-TV in Asheville and WXLV-TV in Winston-Salem — both owned by Sinclair Broadcasting — stopped running the last ad after a complaint from Beverly Perdue's campaign.

RGA spokesman Chris Schrimpf said Thursday afternoon that the group's new ad will be different from the earlier ad but will follow the same theme, tying Perdue to the Raleigh status quo.

Jack Connors, general manager for WLOS, had said earlier Thursday that the RGA had changed its last ad to meet the scrutiny of Sinclair's attorneys. Schrimpf said that is incorrect and that the new ad has nothing to do with the last one.

A copy of the new ad will be made public Friday, Schrimpf said.

UPDATE and CORRECTION: This post has been revised to reflect new information.

More after the jump.

Is the Republican Governors Association looking to boost John McCain?

A recent Wall Street Journal article offers another motive for the GOP group's national fundraising efforts in North Carolina's gubernatorial race: bringing more voters to the polls for Republican Pat McCrory should help McCain win the presidency, Dan Kane reports.

"We are the equalizer in this campaign," said Nick Ayers, the association's executive director, in the article. A contributor to the association also mentioned the strategy to the Journal.

Association spokesman Chris Schrimpf told The News & Observer that there was no such strategy.

He said association leaders were merely pointing out that competitive governors races would naturally bring more Republicans to the polls, and those voters would likely support McCain.

Schrimpf wrote a rebuttal letter printed in the Journal a week after the July 3 article that said:

"It is basic political science that the party as a whole benefits when we have well-run gubernatorial races and more Republican governors. The article took the obvious political truism that strong gubernatorial tickets strengthen their respective tickets, and stretched it beyond recognition to create a story where there is none."

More after the jump.