The life partner of Maine Democratic Senate candidate Troy Jackson spoke out on the campaign attacks against her and her family on Wednesday in the wake of ads questioning her relationship with Jackson, who is challenging five-term incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME).
Lana Pelletier is Jackson’s life partner, and the couple shares two children. They are not legally married. Republicans and anti-Jackson advertisers have slammed their relationship after multiple reports that Pelletier and Jackson are second cousins.
The Senate Leadership Fund, the GOP’s main Senate super PAC, released an advertisement on Tuesday targeting their relationship with a jingle that says, referring to Jackson, “He has two kids with his cousin. If he’ll screw his own family, he’ll screw yours too.”
Pelletier slammed the advertisement as an attack on her family and children in a Wednesday opinion editorial.
“Our children have been dragged into this campaign. Our relationship has been mocked. Our family has been talked about as though there is something shameful about who we are or where we come from,” Pelletier wrote.
“I’m proud of our children. I’m proud of the life Troy and I have built together. I’m proud of how Troy continues to evolve and grow as a leader and advocate,” she continued.
Pelletier’s comments came from an opinion piece she wrote in the Bangor Daily News, in which she also addressed reports that a 1988 police report says she told officers that Jackson pushed her. Pelletier has said she forgets making the statement to police and denies that he ever pushed her, although the reports have been propped up by Republicans and SLF.
“And I deeply resent watching Collins and her allies treat our lives as something beneath them — especially when serious issues involving women are manipulated into political weapons by people who show so little care for the women involved,” Pelletier wrote. “If Collins truly cared about my voice, she could have listened to it. Instead, they’ve decided they know my life better than I do.”
Regarding the jingle advertisement, Collins’s campaign said they did not authorize the SLF ad and called for it to be removed from the airwaves, according to the Portland Press Herald.
Pelletier also took a jab at Collins over her vote to confirm Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh, and his subsequent vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, saying this is “not the first time Collins has asked women to trust her while ignoring what they were telling
her.” Collins has said she does not regret confirming Kavanaugh, but that she disagreed with his vote on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe.
REPUBLICAN SENATE PAC HAMMERS TROY JACKSON ON HIS MARRIAGE IN NEW RADIO AD JINGLE
The race between Collins and Jackson is listed as a toss-up by election forecasters. Jackson leads slightly in the polls, with a 1.6-percentage-point advantage, according to RealClearPolitics averages.
The Washington Examiner has reached out to Collins’s campaign for comment.
Continue reading...
[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
