Campaign rollswheelchair into the picture
Democrat Davis defends her TV ad againstGOP’s Abbott.
austin, texas » Anewtelevision ad by Democratic gubernatorial candidate and state Sen. Wendy Davis goes into territory she hadn’t touched until now: Republican Greg Abbott’s use of a wheelchair.
A 30-second ad released Friday and titled “Justice” notes the Texas attorney general recoveredmillions in a lawsuit after he was injured by a falling tree in 1984, and it accuses him of not siding with victims like himself in Texas courts.
It drewa swift rebuke from national conservative groups and the Abbott campaign, which called it “disgusting” and “desperate.”
“It’s her choice if shewants to attack a guy in awheelchair,” Abbott said in an interview with the San Antonio Express-News editorial board after the ad’s release. “I don’t think it’s going to sell toowell.”
Abbott lost the use of his legs after his spine was crushed by the falling oak tree. The wheelchair hasn’t held him back in his legal or political careers that saw him elected to the state SupremeCourt and as attorney general in 2002.
Davis’ ad is the first by an Abbott opponent to make such an overt issue of his wheelchair. It comes with little time left for Davis to close the gap on Abbott, who began the race as the favorite and maintains sizable leads in opinion polls and campaign bank accounts.
Davis launched her campaign for governor behind the celebrity she achieved through a nearly 13hour filibuster last summer that temporarily blocked a tough, Republican-backed abortion law in the state Senate.
No Democrat has won a statewide election in Texas since 1994. The Davis campaign would not say howmuch it spent on the ad or how long it will run, but said it would run in major metro areas starting Saturday.
Abbott’s own ads have drawn attention to his disability, most notably in spots in which he talks about his recovery and uses the chair to roll past cars stuck in bad traffic. He often mentions it in speeches and has been known to joke about it.
“Some politicians talk about having a spine of steel. I actually have one,” Abbott said when he launched his campaign in 2013.
Davis spokesman Zac Petkanas defended the ad as a fair critique of Abbott as a hypocrite when it comes to his personal life and public policy.
“(Abbott) rightly sought justice after a horrible tragedy,” Petkanas said.
But the ad also “raises some very serious questions aboutGreg Abbott andwhether (voters) want someone in the governor’s office who would seek justice and then spend their career denying justice to others,” Petkanas said.
The Davis ad notes that in one case, Abbott argued that an amputee suing for employment discrimination was not disabled because she had a prosthetic limb. It also cites two other cases that have already been the subject of previous Davis campaign spots.
National conservatives pounced on the Davis campaign. “It’s gutter politics at its worst,” said FreedomWorks forAmerica president Matt Kibbe.