“Don Green is doing exactly what Tami Green is complaining about — misappropriating our image and identity and using material out of context… By hiding his authorship of this piece, he’s clearly trying to misuse our good name and reputation, and that’s not only wrong, it’s sleazy, to use the word Tami applied to the material targeting her.”
That was News Tribune publisher David Zeeck’s reaction to an illegal campaign stunt pulled by Democrat candidate for state Senate Tami Green’s husband, Don Green. Mr. Green, chair of the 28th Legislative District Democrats, sent out about 5,000 letters this week to 28th LD voters in a desperate attempt to help his wife unseat state Sen. Steve O’Ban.
The letter did not list an author, nor did it identify a donor. Mr. Green claims he used his own money to print and mail the letters. He also claims that the overall cost did not reach the required threshold ($1,000) to list a sponsor. However, evidence indicates he “used the 28th District Democrats’ bulk mailing permit to send them, securing a lower bulk mailing rate in the process.”
Though illegal, that’s not was prompted the publisher’s angry reaction. It was the fact that the letter was made to appear as though the source was The News Tribune.
The letter—which is really just excerpts of an Oct. 24 editorial—features The News Tribune’s name prominently at the top of the page. The carefully selected excerpts of the editorial “criticized ‘laughably misleading’ election advertising in some of this year’s races, including the contest between Green and O’Ban.” What is leaves out is the fact that the same editorial includes a confirmation that the campaign literature “put out by O’Ban’s campaign is perfectly acceptable.” It also fails to mention that the News Tribune editorial board endorsed O’Ban, not Green, for state Senate.
Tami Green claims she knew nothing of her husband’s plans. According to the state Senate hopeful, her husband sent the mailer without first consulting her.
The News Tribune editorial board responded to the illegal mailer calling it “one of the most dishonest fliers” they have ever seen. The editorial board recently wrote,
It deliberately twists and falsifies an editorial that appeared in this space last Friday…
This was conscious, malicious doctoring of a passage to misrepresent our comment on a campaign…
[Green] distances herself from the deceit by saying that her husband did not ask her permission to distribute it.
At the same time, though, she justifies it as “an attempt to set the record straight.”
Artfully misrepresenting our editorial sets the record straight?
We’ll set the record straight on another point the mailer neglected to mention: We endorsed Steve O’Ban for the state Senate in this position, not Tami Green.
You can check out the mailer below.
Leave a Reply