Republican candidate for Attorney General, Luther Strange, is on the defensive today following allegations that he lobbies for “Big Oil” — allegations he categorically denies.
The first I’d heard about it (thanks, tipster) was Monday when I was pointed to this press release on Strange’s website which begins:
In a political smear campaign proven to include false claims, Attorney General Troy King teamed up with convicted criminal and political hack Stan Pate to run a television commercial which includes lies about Republican attorney general candidate Luther Strange.
Pate, who is awaiting jail time for a criminal conviction, spent nearly $20,000 to air a television commercial falsely accusing Strange of currently working as a lobbyist for the oil industry. The TV spot started airing Sunday in Birmingham. It refers to the tragic Gulf oil spill which resulted in the deaths of eleven men and could bring on decades of economic and environmental harm.
At first, I couldn’t find the ad to which they referred but yesterday found www.bigluther.com. Man.
It’s a website dedicated to showing links between Strange and oil companies. The attack ad on the site (which I assume is the same one airing in Birmingham) begins with a menacing “The Gulf is filling with oil” and ends with a menacing “Don’t let Alabama fall victim to the big oil lobbyist – again.”
The ad and website both carry the information that they are funded by a Tuscaloosa-based PAC that isn’t listed at the Secretary of State’s website yet: Protecting Alabamians Against Washington Lobbyists. None of that was lost on the Strange campaign, which sent a cease and desist letter to television stations, noting that the PAC’s Tuscaloosa PO Box “has been used by Stan Pate in the past” (their emphasis).
The letter calls the attacks made in the ads “slanderous and defamatory” and refutes at length the substance of claims made in the ad. The gist, however, is this:
The advertisement references Mr. Strange by name and states that Mr. Strange “lobbies for big oil.” This statement is demonstrably false. Mr. Strange is not registered as a lobbyist for any company or organization at the federal or the state level.
Strange connects the political dots in this way, as quoted in the campaign’s most recent press release:
“We should not be surprised that Troy King is so desperate that he is turning to Stan Pate, someone who was recently sentenced to jail and has a history of running false advertisements that have attacked people I care for and respect, like Governor Riley,” Strange said. “While our Governor is on the coast with National Guardsmen preparing our coastline, Mr. King and Mr. Pate are using a tragic disaster to try and score cheap political points.”
Primary season is totally upon us.
UPDATE (10:00 am): I just found a Troy King for AG-funded website in which Strange (“a thirty-year paid lobbyist for Washington special interests”) is accused of taking “dirty campaigning to a whole new low.” This site is more of a place-marker, but are there more of these sites out there?
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