Mehlman Swiftboats Reid and Pelosi Via Radio on Immigration

Mehlman Swiftboats Reid and Pelosi Via Radio on Immigration

Republicans on Thursday disclosed a Spanish-language
radio advertising campaign that blames Democrats for thwarting progress on
immigration reform.

The 60-second spots will play early next week, a Republican
official said, on Univision's KOMR-FM (106.3) and KKMR-FM (106.5), KQMR-FM
(100.3) in Phoenix, and Arizona Lotus Corp.'s KCMT-FM (102.1) in Tucson.

They also are scheduled to air in the heavily Hispanic
states of New Mexico and Nevada.

The ads are paid for the Republican National Committee
and are meant to point out that \”Democrats are not serving as honest
brokers in the debate. . . . They are manipulating the issue for political
benefit,\” said Danny Diaz, spokesman for the RNC.

GOP
group's Spanish radio ads target Dems

Via
McJoan at DailyKos is all over the latest swiftboating of Harry Reid and
the Democrats. This time it's over illegal immigration.

Let's remember, first of all, that Democrats are a minority in
the Senate.

It's not Senator Reid's fault if Bush is weak and majority leader
Bill Frist is weaker.

What Ken Mehlman is leading at the Republican Party is a fraudulent
campaign on an emotional issue that is intended to push Hispanics and Latinos to shift blame from where it belongs, on Republicans.

It's what I've been telling you about radio for a long time. Republicans
know how to use it to GOTV and raise the Republicans, this time through Spanish-language
radio.

Senator
Reid and the Democrats were right to keep the Republican amendments
out, which were meant to scuttle the bill, as far as it's been reported,
while stopping a bad bill from getting through. A bad bill that was not going to solve
the challenge we face on illegal immigration.

The first problem with the bill is that it wasn't funded, including
border security. How can we secure our borders without funding what we need
done? In addition, there was not any provisions to target employers, from what
I've been able to gather so far. This is a critical part of it, also having
to do with funding. You can't target employers if you don't fund the division
charged with investigating employers to make sure they're following U.S. labor
laws.

That Mehlman is running to Spanish-language radio on a smear campaign founded in fraud shows the weakness of Republicans and reminds us of just how low they are willing to go to win. We must never forget it.

UPDATE: Missed this one from Josh Marshall, here too, mea culpa.