Reality Check: An analysis of campaign ads

By Ken McLaughlin

Charging Whitman with deceiving Latinos is not quite accurate

What's the claim? A new Spanish-language ad by Working Californians, a Democratic independent expenditure committee, claims GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman says "one thing in Spanish -- and the opposite when she speaks in English.''

Is it true? The charge isn't accurate, because though Whitman is being selective about what she says in Spanish-language ads versus English-language ads, she's not saying the "opposite."

During the GOP primary campaign, Whitman was attacked by opponent Steve Poizner for being too soft on immigration. So her campaign chairman, former Gov. Pete Wilson, did an ad saying Whitman would be "tough as nails on illegal immigration."

Immediately after she won the primary, Whitman ran Spanish-language ads telling the Latino community she was against Proposition 187, which would have denied most services to illegal immigrants, and also opposed to the new Arizona law requiring immigrants to show their residency papers when stopped by police.

Whitman obviously didn't point out in those ads that Wilson, the champion of Proposition 187, was chairman of her campaign. Nor did she acknowledge that she's in favor of denying all undocumented children access to state-funded colleges and universities.

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[Posted by Emma Mederos]