Third District House candidate Weston Wamp on Tuesday said incumbent Chuck Fleischmann is being “intellectually dishonest” and “distorting the truth” with his current campaign ads.
Mr. Wamp said his own latest ad "calls for an end to negative politics, more action and less finger-pointing in Washington."
Mr. Wamp said, “It’s really sad that the incumbent went negative all over the Third District on television the day before early voting began. Clearly, he does not have a record to run on so he is resorting back to the nasty tactics he used against Robin Smith in 2010. Voters are sick and tired of this kind of political campaign."
He said he specifically referred to an ad on immigration that the incumbent began running in the north end of the Third District last week. In the ad, the announcer says, “Weston Wamp supports amnesty for illegal immigrants who flout our laws.”
Mr. Wamp said the ad then "manipulates comments from the WTCI/Times Free Press debate July 2 and has a clip where I say, 'We need to find a pathway for them to be legal.' "
Mr. Wamp stated, "What I actually said was, 'There are a lot of people who are illegally working. We need to find a pathway for them to be legal, but not citizens, but pay taxes. But unfortunately, Congress does nothing.' ”
“The manipulation of my comments by the incumbent is the lowest form of running a negative campaign,” said Mr. Wamp. “The ad is intellectually dishonest and distorts the truth.”