March 28, 2024
ELECTION 2006

‘Inaccurate’ GOP ad pulled by WABI-TV Spot claimed $733M state budget gap

BANGOR – Station management at WABI-TV, Channel 5, acquiesced to a request from Gov. John E. Baldacci’s lawyer Friday and pulled a Republican Governors Association ad from the airwaves after concluding the 30-second spot was “inaccurate.”

“The ad was inaccurate in my view – or, at the least, grossly misleading,” said Mike Young, station manager at WABI.

Charlie Spies, general counsel for the Republican Governors Association in Washington, characterized the station’s action as “unfortunate,” adding it was regrettable that Young had not discussed his decision with the association before responding to the request from Augusta lawyer Michael V. Saxl.

“I think it is unfortunate that rather than respond to the issues and facts in our ad, Baldacci would prefer to attempt to convince television stations to pull the advertisement,” Spies said.

The brouhaha over the ad began when it aired Thursday, prompting the Baldacci campaign and three Democratic state senators to hold an impromptu news conference to castigate the ad, which they said was “riddled with inaccuracies and distortions.”

The ad – the second of a reported $200,000 media buy in Maine – begins by making four negative statements about state government and goes on to cite the sources for the statements.

The ad claims that Maine has the nation’s highest tax burden and the eighth highest gas tax, citing The Tax Foundation as its source. The ad refers to a $733 million state budget gap and cites the Government Performance Project as its source, and then points out that the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston had identified Maine as one of only two states to experience an economic decline in 2005.

The ad then says that GOP gubernatorial candidate Chandler Woodcock has a better plan for solving the state’s problems.

Although the Democrats took issue with several of the points in the advertisement, they were particularly incensed by the reference to the structural gap in the budget that is represented by the disparity between projected tax revenues and ongoing state spending. In reality, the gap was eliminated in the last legislative session and the state now reports a $150 million surplus.

“The ad suggests that we have a $733 million gap at this point and it’s totally false,” said state Sen. Michael Brennan of Portland.

While WABI’s Young said several of the assertions made in the ad “could or could not be true,” he was convinced that the advertisement left viewers with the impression that the state is experiencing a $733 million budget gap. Based on that perception alone, the station manager felt it was necessary to pull the ad – a decision he said was reached after considerable deliberation.

Appearing with other gubernatorial candidates Friday in Portland at the Maine Development Foundation’s annual meeting, Baldacci angrily remarked on the ad when some of the other speakers mentioned that business interests harbor a pessimistic attitude toward the state.

“I wasn’t going to talk about this, but we had a perfect example of that just yesterday when the Republican Governors Association ran an ad telling people that we have a budget deficit,” he said. “Their claim is that there is a huge budget deficit in Maine when, in fact, under the constitution and in law, the budget has to be balanced. It is balanced and there is a surplus. That’s a perfect example of why there is pessimism in Maine.”

Baldacci attempted to involve Woodcock in the discussion, but the Republican, who was said Thursday to have had nothing to do with the campaign, ignored Baldacci’s remarks.

“[The ad] is not true and it’s a distortion and, Chandler, you know that it’s not true and you know that it’s wrong,” Baldacci said.

Later, Woodcock campaign manager Chris Jackson said Young had a television station to run and had obviously made a business decision.

“That’s his prerogative,” Jackson said.

Saxl, a former Democratic speaker of the Maine House, said he had made requests to pull the ad to all Maine television stations because much of the advertisement was “patently false.” Efforts to determine whether other stations would follow suit were unsuccessful late Friday afternoon.

“We’re in discussion with other stations to pull the ad, and I suspect there may be more developments over the weekend,” Saxl said.


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