Thursday, April 3, 2008
Woods Tuke: GOP Press Release 'an Outrage'
Posted by Jeff Woods on Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 10:20 AM
Democratic Senate candidate Bob Tuke is denouncing the state GOP for its MLK press release and demanding that Sen. Lamar Alexander do the same. Before Tuke made his statement, we asked Alexander for comment yesterday and haven't received a response, although his press office promised one. Here's what Tuke says:
"The latest cynical release from the Tennessee Republican Party marking the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is an outrage. For Tennessee GOP Chair Robin Smith to claim that Dr. King would have embraced the ideals of the same Republican Party that has fought against increasing the minimum wage, employed voter suppression strategies in African-American precincts, and defended Bush's bungled response to Hurricane Katrina is a perverse distortion of Dr. King's legacy. I call on Senator Lamar Alexander to join me in renouncing this claim and demand that the Tennessee Republican Party retract today."
Update: Surprise! Alexander won't comment on the GOP press release. He puts out his own statement saying how much he honors MLK, whose possible party affiliation isn't mentioned. "As governor of Tennessee in the 1980s, I helped make Martin Luther King Day a state holiday."
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