SUBMITTED RELEASE FROM NEVADA STATE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
By Phoebe Sweet
LAS VEGAS–We already know about GOP Senate candidate Sue Lowden’s dismal record as a boss and businesswoman. But it turns out Lowden’s willingness to ruthlessly take advantage of others to line her own pockets isn’t her only disturbing characteristic.
Sue Lowden also has a problem with the truth.
Political columnist Jon Ralston called Lowden out yesterday on a “strategy of dishonesty” in the latest of what has become a disturbing pattern. Ralston took Lowden to task for her statement earlier in the campaign suggesting she’d have voted for TARP, which has now morphed into an unequivocal claim she would never have voted for TARP–conveniently timed, now that the initial statement has turned out to be a political liability in the GOP primary.
And the pattern is becoming unmistakable. When her record or the facts don’t fit the narrative Lowden wants to tell, she’s shown she’s willing to simply make things up. Until recently, Lowden claimed in interviews and stump speeches that she was the lone voice against labor union attempts to overturn the state’s voter-approved right-to-work status in 1995, even going so far as to say she stopped the bill in the state Senate.
“The only problem?” wrote the Reno Gazette-Journal. “There never was such a bill, and there never was such a vote, which Lowden acknowledged later when pressed for specifics.”
And Lowden’s prevarications don’t come exclusively from the campaign trail. Perhaps more disturbingly because of the pre-meditation involved, she’s willing to put them on television. Earlier this month, Factcheck.org called a Lowden ad that featured typical GOP myths about a “government takeover” of health care “a practically fact-free attack.” Ralston gave the ad a D for honesty and said it was “really hard to take seriously.”
“Sue Lowden has spent her career in Nevada taking advantage of her employees to enrich herself, using her position as an elected official to pad her company’s profits, and stiffing the workers that built her lavish estate,” said Phoebe Sweet, communications director with the Nevada State Democratic Party. “As the truth about Lowden’s record continues to catch up with her, she’s developed a disturbing pattern of dishonesty that seems to get worse with each passing day.”
