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Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor calls her primary opponent an out-of-touch liberal
YOUNGSTOWN
Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor, who is running as a Republican gubernatorial candidate, sharply criticized her opponent, Attorney General Mike DeWine, as an out-of-touch liberal in an increasingly bitter GOP primary race.
During a Friday endorsement interview with The Vindicator, Taylor said, “Mike DeWine is running a campaign today that wants Republican voters to believe that he’s conservative yet when you look at every time he’s been asked to stand on those conservative principles on behalf of conservatives, he’s chosen a different path.”
Taylor said DeWine’s refusal to debate her “is a complete disservice to those very voters he is asking to support him” in the election.
“We think it’s important for voters to be informed and so we are reminding voters of Mike DeWine’s liberal record,” she said.
Taylor said DeWine is “personally attacking and slandering me on TV.”
When asked if she’s doing the same, Taylor said, “We’re reminding voters of his voting record.”
On Friday, Taylor began airing a television and digital commercial called “962,” that talks about the 962 times DeWine voted with Hillary Clinton between 2001 and 2006 when the two were in the U.S. Senate.
DeWine’s campaign fired back, sending a cease-and-desist letter to TV stations airing what it called “false and deceptive advertisements” from Taylor.
“Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor has built her entire campaign on one lie after another,” said Ryan Stubenrauch, DeWine campaign spokesman.
He added: “We will not sit by and let Lt. Gov. Taylor’s latest lies about Mike DeWine and his conservative record air freely on television.”
Taylor said she is telling the truth about DeWine’s voting record.
“Republican primary voters are sick and tired of the establishment who runs a campaign professing to be a conservative but once they get elected, they don’t govern as a conservative, and that’s what Mike DeWine is” doing, she said.
Taylor said: “I’m not a conservative because it’s convenient. I’m a conservative because I am a conservative, and my record is pretty clear on that because I truly believe in those values.”
Taylor said she is pro life “with no exceptions,” would eliminate the Medicaid expansion, and opposes any additional gun-control laws. The current laws, she said, need to be followed and “where individuals shouldn’t have guns, they shouldn’t have guns.”
She added: “The best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”