Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alex Sanders criticized Republican opponent Lindsey Graham Monday for using "inaccurate information" from a conservative newspaper in a new ad to "mislead voters" on what Graham's Social Security plan would accomplish.
Graham campaigned in Rock Hill, joined by White House counselor Mary Matalin, as GOP strategists sought to further underscore the importance of the South Carolina Senate election to the Bush administration. Incumbent Republican Sen. Strom Thurmond is retiring after 48 years in office. Graham is a fourth-term U.S. House member from Seneca.
He said that the ad "sets the record straight on Sanders' attempts to distort the Bush-Graham efforts to save Social Security for future generations."
Sanders said his opponent's ad was based in part on an opinion column in The Washington Times that warned of Democratic "scare tactics on Social Security." The conservative paper, called a questionable journalistic source by Sanders, was founded in 1982 by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, who heads the international Unification Church.
The ad alleges that "Alex Sanders and his Democratic Party cronies in Washington have it wrong," then links Graham and Bush to "a plan to guarantee benefits and to protect and preserve Social Security."
But Sanders said the opinion article was published well before he began running ads on Social Security and doesn't mention his campaign. Its references were to the 2000 presidential campaign between Bush and then Vice President Al Gore, he said.
Sanders said in a press release the state did not need Moon telling about Social Security or "Lindsey Graham telling people I'm trying to scare seniors."
