Sanchez campaigner fired for seeking race-specific actors for ad
Posted on 08/03/2002 2:55:27 AM PDT by MeekOneGOP
Sanchez campaigner fired for seeking race-specific actors for ad
08/03/2002
The director of the Tony Sanchez campaign's Dallas office was fired Friday after he placed an ad seeking actors for campaign commercials, "a mix of people, with emphasis on Caucasians ... willing to say something like 'I am sick of Perry's negative attacks.' "
Capping a week of escalating nastiness, a Sanchez spokesman said campaign staffer John Robert Wright was fired for being "overzealous" and placing the ad in an online actor's trade paper without approval by higher-ups.
"We don't need paid actors to complain about the lies in Rick Perry's ads," said Mark Sanders, spokesman for the Democratic challenger, a Laredo businessman. "People are coming out of the woodwork."
Mr. Perry's spokesman deemed the casting call by race "unseemly" and "cynical."
Mr. Sanchez "is trying to have people say things they don't really believe to make attacks on Gov. Perry that aren't really true," said spokesman Ray Sullivan
Mr. Wright, who was given two weeks of severance pay, declined to comment and referred calls about his employment to the Sanchez campaign. He was dismissed after reporters made inquiries about the ad, copies of which were distributed by the Perry campaign media office.
The Sanchez campaign is furiously counterattacking after Mr. Perry launched a statewide ad Monday linking Mr. Sanchez's failed Laredo thrift with drug-money laundering.
Both campaigns spent the week heatedly working the press, debating the fine points of law and ethics, each side painting the other as disreputable rogues.
The call for actors appeared Wednesday among the notices for auditions, drama classes and other thespian fare in the electronic newsletter of the Dallas-based Society for Theatrical Artists' Guidance and Entertainment, or STAGE.
The Perry and Sanchez campaigns said that their candidates never use professional actors in commercials, only unpaid volunteers who support the candidate.
The casting call said the Sanchez ads would be filmed Friday, and Mr. Sanders confirmed that campaign ads were being filmed in Dallas that day. But, he said, the ads did not fit the description included in the casting call, and the ads do not use anybody who responded to it.
A spokesman for STAGE said the advertisement called for unpaid actors.
In response to calls to that number early Friday, a receptionist indicated that she was familiar with the ad and that no more actors were needed.
The listing ran under the headline "TONY SANCHEZ CAMPAIGN NEEDS ACTORS FOR COMMERICALS!" It called for "10 to 15 people who are willing to do testimonials on camera." Besides the "emphasis on Caucasians," the ad looked for people willing to say of Mr. Perry, "Why won't he talk about issues that effect people like me (sic)."
It also called for "a couple of African Americans" to pose in the background as customers at a body shop while Mr. Sanchez delivered a script in a repair bay.
Also Friday, the Sanchez campaign released a second commercial designed to walk a fine line contesting the Perry money-laundering ad without repeating and giving airplay to its bombshell allegations.
The ad opens with grainy footage similar to images from Mr. Perry's money-laundering ad, including men carrying briefcases and Mr. Sanchez at the Democratic primary debate. Typed across the top corner of the screen are the word's "Perry's lies."
The 30-second commercial segues into a series of news clips that quote a federal judge as saying his ruling was used out of context in the Perry ad. It notes that the case the judge ruled on concerned an El Paso bank, not Mr. Sanchez's Laredo thrift. It faults the Perry ad's identification of Panama as "Manuel Noriega's Panama," because the Sanchez case in no way involved the notorious dictator.
It concludes with a picture of Mr. Perry and the statement, "We didn't elect him ... we shouldn't believe him."
The Perry campaign responded by saying Mr. Sanchez was "taking a play from Bill Clinton's playbook." Mr. Sullivan said that, contrary to the federal judge's recent statements, the Perry ad accurately reflects the judge's findings: Mr. Sanchez's Tesoro Savings and Loan accepted drug money and wired that money to Panama.
"Regardless of attempts at revisionist history and partisan spin, nothing can change the truth about Tesoro's involvement in drug-money laundering," he said.
E-mail pslover@dallasnews.com
and mbrachear@dallasnews.com
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