Women’s campaign decries GOP attack ads

Press release

from The Power of 5 Women

Thank you for being here today. My name is Gwen Wisler and I am one of the organizers of the Power of 5 Women, a campaign to elect Democratic women to represent Buncombe County. Susan B. Anthony said, “There will never be complete equality until all women themselves help to make laws and elect women.” We are standing here today in support of our local Democratic women running for office. 

Specifically, we’ve asked the media here because we are fighting back against the false mailers and vicious comments that are coming from the Buncombe County GOP and directed at Jane Whilden as well as the unconscionable billboard proposed by the local GOP against Holly Jones.

One must have a thick skin to become involved in politics. Things get heated on the campaign trail with so much at stake.  Our women leaders are tough and have bravely entered the political fray despite the outsider attack money pouring into our county. However, the recent communications coming out of the Buncombe County GOP have gone from heated to downright degrading, despicable, and unethical. It is one thing to oppose someone’s policy, it is quite another for an official political organization to release photo-shopped filth and false insinuations of phony scandals through their official Facebook and Twitter pages.

I would be willing to bet that the people behind these vicious smears are not women. We women of Buncombe County stand together tonight to say ENOUGH!  We have had enough of the slander and hatred.  And we want to appeal to all the women of Buncombe County – no matter what your party affiliation – to put yourselves in Jane and Holly’s shoes and do not reward the Buncombe County Republican Party and their big-money allies from Raleigh for using unethical tactics. 

We planned to hold civil debates and address public forums to discuss positive ideas going forward. After an awkward and unsatisfactory performance at the Chamber of Commerce, Tim Moffitt has largely gone missing in action. Rather than face the hard questions, Mr. Moffitt has skipped public forums of the Asheville Civitan, the League of Women Voters, the Deerfield Candidate Reception and the Delta Sigma Theta sorority and instead chosen to hide behind the hateful mailings and ads of multimillionaire Art Pope’s PACs and the Republicans.

Mr. Moffitt does not want to answer the public and media’s questions on his record of:

Gutting education;
Giving tax loopholes to the wealthy;
His single-handed efforts to steal Buncombe’s community assets for the benefit of other counties or private interests.

It’s time for fair-minded citizens to go to the ballot box in support of the women candidates who are standing up for us and the good of our communities.  It’s time for us to elect more smart women to public office. We’ve had enough of the Buncombe Republicans’s dirty politics, and we urge the public to stand with us and make their voices heard at the polls in favor of the outstanding women candidates we support:

Jane Whilden, Susan Fisher and Susan Wilson for N.C. House;
Holly Jones, Ellen Frost, Terry Van Duyn, Carol Peterson, and Michelle Pace Wood for Buncombe County Commission;
Patsy Keever for U.S. Congress

Above all, today, we call on the Buncombe County Republicans and their allies to quit lying and hiding and to stop degrading our dedicated, capable women leaders. We’ve had enough!

For more information about the Power of 5 Campaign and to get postcards for your friends, visit www.powerof5nc.org or email us at info@powerof5nc.org.