Friday, October 4, 2013

Doug Gansler Disavows Surrogate's Anti-Immigrant Writings // Councilmember Nancy Navarro & Pundit Todd Eberly Weigh In

Yesterday Maryland Juice wrote about an unforced error from Attorney General Doug Gansler's gubernatorial campaign. During his campaign kickoff a few weeks ago, Gansler released a video highlighting testimonials from a few surrogates, including retired police offer Mike Mancuso. But we noted that Mancuso has written pieces in local newspapers scapegoating immigrants for budget problems during our recent recession. Below we provide a few updates to this story including a response from Gansler, as well as commentary from Montgomery County Councilmember Nancy Navarro and political pundit Todd Eberly:

JUICE #1: DOUG GANSLER DISAVOWS ANTI-IMMIGRANT VIEWS OF SURROGATE MIKE MANCUSO - Today, The Washington Post's John Wagner published a response from Attorney General Doug Gansler to news of his supporter's anti-immigrant writings (excerpt below):
WASHINGTON POST: The gubernatorial campaign of Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler (D) on Thursday disavowed views on immigration expressed in 2010 by a retired Montgomery County police officer who appeared in a recent Gansler campaign video....
The blog Maryland Juice reported Thursday that in 2010 Mancuso wrote a couple of opinion pieces in local papers, including The Washington Post, in which he accused Montgomery officials of not doing enough to address the county’s No. 1 budget problem: “an ever-increasing population of illegal immigrants that is rapidly depleting our tax dollars and services....”

“Mr. Mancuso’s later views on immigration certainly do not reflect the views of the attorney general and his campaign for governor,” [Gansler spokesman Bob] Wheelock said. “Indeed, Doug has been a national leader on immigration reform and worked tirelessly to ensure passage of the Dream Act here in Maryland....”

JUICE #2: MOCO COUNCILMEMBER NANCY NAVARRO RESPONDS TO MANCUSCO'S WRITINGS - Maryland Juice received the following response to our story on the controversy from Montgomery County Councilmember Nancy Navarro:
NANCY NAVARRO: I was deeply disturbed to read your article about gubernatorial candidate Doug Gansler putting an anti-immigrant former Montgomery County police officer front and center in his campaign kick-off video. Even though I support Anthony Brown for governor, I continue To think highly of Doug Gansler. In many conversations I've had with Doug over the years, he has always spoken proudly of the "welcoming community" we have in Montgomery County. Unfortunately, this campaign video sends  a completely different message to our proud immigrant community. 

JUICE #3: POLITICAL PUNDIT TODD EBERLY WEIGHS IN ON GANSLER CONTROVERSY - Todd Eberly, a political pundit in Maryland, pushed back on the relevance of this story in a series of Tweets today (samples below):

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