COLUMBIA, S.C. - Republicans called Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Inez Tenenbaum hypocritical on her trade stance on Thursday.

Republicans cited financial records that show her husband, Sam Tenenbaum, invests in companies that have hired workers overseas despite her campaign's stance of protecting U.S. jobs.

According to financial records Tenenbaum filed with the Senate, her husband holds stock in companies, such as Delta Air Lines, Intel Corp. and General Electric, that have workers abroad.

Trade and outsourced jobs are central issues in the contest between Tenenbaum and Republican U.S. Rep. Jim DeMint to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Ernest "Fritz" Hollings in November's election.

"The real issue here is not whether Mrs. Tenenbaum is right or wrong to support companies that outsource, the real issue is that Mrs. Tenenbaum is being hypocritical to criticize Jim DeMint for something she is doing herself," said Katon Dawson, chairman of the state Republican Party.

On Tuesday, Tenenbaum noted that DeMint buys campaign T-shirts made in Honduras. She pointed to her campaign's domestically-produced T-shirts and said her campaign would strive to use companies that only employ U.S. workers. A day earlier, the campaign fired BellSouth as its teleconference provider because a Montreal call center handled the work.

Tenenbaum blames DeMint's votes during three U.S. House terms for the loss of thousands of South Carolina textile jobs.

The personal attack is meant to take attention away from DeMint's voting record in Congress, Tenenbaum spokeswoman Kay Packett said. "If I had that record, I'd try to change the subject too."

Tenenbaum supports free trade and wants voters to understand the federal government's failure to enforce fair trade has forced companies to use cheap labor overseas and take jobs away from South Carolina, Packet said.

"The Republican Party has made our point perfectly: outsourcing is ever-present in our economy today. The difference is, Jim DeMint wants to keep outsourcing jobs, and Inez Tenenbaum wants to stop it," Packett said.

For his part, DeMint welcomes more business with other countries as a way to create high-paying jobs in the state, campaign spokesman Geoff Embler said. "The fact is we have an interdependent world and she's revealed that herself," Embler said. "I think she's backed herself into a corner."

While T-shirts and financial disclosures are fuel for political debate, they are off-point in ways, University of South Carolina political scientist Blease Graham said.

"It raises a question of consistency," Graham said. "I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say hypocritical."

While U.S. trade policies divide the candidates, it's a complex issue to explain to voters, Graham says.

"I think everybody realizes there is economic change," Graham said. "With that change comes winners and losers. The point is what is government doing? What is the market doing to people whose jobs are displaced by these developments."

The Republican attack is "an accusation that can kind of stick in the craw of the average person," Winthrop University political scientist Scott Huffmon said.