To say that eighth-district Democratic incumbent Alan Grayson’s latest ad has been panned would be an understatement.
“It breaks an old soldier’s heart to think that Daniel Webster could ever be elected to Congress,” says an unidentified but grizzled, old voice, after recounting how Daniel Webster “refused the call to service” during the Vietnam War.
FactCheck.org called the claim false, saying that Webster was deferred first for educational reasons and then for problems with his feet.
Now the Florida Marine Corps League is saying Grayson should take down the ad for an entirely different reason: the ad’s opening shot shows a photo of Grayson with an individual wearing a hat bearing the name of the organization.
“The event that this Marine was at had nothing to do with a political event,” Commandant Bill Backes told Battle ‘10. “They were laying a wreath at a World War II memorial.”
Backes said that taking the photo and, “morphing it in an ad to subliminally tell people that the Marine Corps League is supporting Alan Grayson is despicable.”
He said the organization is apolitical, and members aren’t allowed to attend political events in uniform.
“We can lose our status — we can lose our 501(c) status by doing that. And it’s happened,” Backes said. “The last one recently was with Blumenthal in Connecticut. And two of our members showed up and spoke on TV about what a great guy he was.”
A Grayson representative told the Orlando Sentinel the ad will continue to run, and that the photo doesn’t imply an endorsement from the organization.