UPDATED:
Boeing and its jobs in Washington state are the focus of recent political campaign ads.
State Republicans are lashing back today at Sen. Patty Murray after she released a campaign video about her efforts to help the Boeing Co. win the Air Force tanker contract. The Democrat featured Boeing workers, who credited Murray with helping overturn an initial award of the tanker contract to Boeing’s rival EADS.
State Republican party chairman Luke Esser responded in a statement today:
“Sen. Patty Murray is bragging in t.v. commercials about how many Boeing jobs she has brought to our state. But as is frequently the case, Patty doesn’t tell the whole story. Here’s the truth: Since 1997 Boeing has moved its corporate headquarters to Chicago, sited a new 787 assembly line in Charleston, SC, and cut 30,000 jobs in Washington State.”
Murray is facing Republican challenger Dino Rossi in a tight race for the U.S. Senate seat.
UPDATE at 2:30 p.m.:
The Republican party’s new commercial shows news clips from the “a href=”http://www.goiam.org/”>International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers News Network. It also shows a clip of the Boeing workers who were featured in Murray’s commercial.
Larry Brown with the local 751 district of the Machinists union said the Republicans can continue to run ads of his union members because the clips show “Machinists talking about how Patty’s working for jobs.”
“Dino wasn’t anywhere to be found” when the Air Force awarded EADS and Northrop Grumman the tanker contract in 2008, Brown said. “If it wasn’t for Sen. Murray and (Rep.) Norm Dicks, Airbus would be building those tankers.”
“Patty is for jobs,” he said.
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