Posted on Tue, Aug. 29, 2006

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Moore questions claims in Sanford ad

JIM DAVENPORT

Associated Press

COLUMBIA, S.C. - Gov. Mark Sanford launched a new ad Tuesday that doesn't have a spoken word, but that prompted volumes of criticism from his Democratic opponent for overstated accomplishments.

With Labor Day approaching, voters will be seeing and hearing more of Democrat Tommy Moore than they have since the primary. Sanford emerged from his GOP primary in June flush with cash and has had ads running on television and radio intermittently. But Moore and his campaign have been far less visible as he tries to raise cash to take on Sanford.

That's changing. "We're going to go after his record," Moore campaign spokeswoman Karen Gutmann said.

Sanford's newest ad mentions his work on criminal domestic violence and flashes a newspaper headline noting a new law.

Moore's campaign points out the editorial displayed in the ad was actually critical of Sanford by noting that his leadership was needed on the issue and that Sanford "still might champion some of the 23 recommendations in a 110-page report issued by a state domestic violence task force in 2000."

Sanford "has just been dead wrong on domestic violence," Gutmann said.

Moore's campaign also said Sanford voted against putting money into criminal domestic violence programs in 2000 while in the U.S. House, wavered on signing criminal domestic violence legislation in 2003, eliminated funding for the governor's Commission on Women in 2003 and last year saw his spokesman arrested - and later pleading guilty - to domestic violence charges.

Moore is "playing politics with a serious issue," Sanford campaign manager Jason Miller said.

Miller said Sanford had the state Social Services Department set aside $3 million for safe havens for victims of domestic abuse and asked for more than $2 million for special criminal domestic violence prosecutors.

The 2000 congressional vote Moore criticized was tied to Sanford's worries that funding for the program would result in a raid on the Social Security trust fund, Miller said.

The governor's new ad also says he cut income taxes.

Two weeks ago, Moore's campaign questioned that claim, too. The only income tax cuts lately have been for small-business owners. That was part of a proposal Moore wrote in 2003, but the Republican-controlled Senate rejected.

Sanford fielded questions about that and other Moore campaign criticism last week.

Sanford campaigned in 2002 on a plan to lower income taxes by raising gasoline taxes. After his election, Sanford altered that plan a few times with other tax trade-off proposals. Then, last year, legislators and credit rating agencies balked at the proposal's $1 billion price tag, but the Legislature agreed to cut income taxes for small businesses.

"Does anyone think that the small-business income tax break would have passed if we hadn't been pushing for the larger enchilada?" Sanford said. On the other hand, he said, Moore's plan went nowhere.

Moore's campaign also criticized Sanford for showing up at the reopening of Charles Towne Landing a couple of weeks ago after vetoing money for the project in 2005.

Sanford said Moore's campaign was stretching.

"If I wanted to kill off funding for Charles Towne Landing, I would have done it at the PRT level," he said. The state Parks, Recreation and Tourism Department operates that attraction and is part of Sanford's Cabinet. His veto, he said, was about how the project was paid for and PRT already had the money to do the work.

Moore's campaign also said Sanford's claim on his campaign Web site that he added new state troopers is off the mark and doesn't mention troopers lost during Sanford's first two years in office. Just half of those positions cut have been replaced.

"It's just fanciful," Sanford said of the criticism.

Sanford blamed the trooper losses on Boykin Rose, the Department of Public Safety director appointed by his predecessor, Democrat Jim Hodges. Sanford couldn't remove Rose before Rose's six-year term expired.

When the state had budget problems, Rose dealt with it through attrition rather than cutting administrative staff and costs, Sanford said. "He just let the normal turnover and attrition take place and bled down the numbers," Sanford said.

"It seems to me there ought to be some kind of consequence when you just go making stuff up as your way of making a charge," Sanford said.

Sanford's campaign, Gutmann said, has been polling on issues and is playing a political game of sending messages that sound good. "They're just making stuff up about his weaknesses," she said. "It's just a tactic."