Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis' (D) campaign released a scathing television advertisement on Friday, her first in the race against Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (R).
The ad, titled "A Texas Story," criticizes Abbott for a dissenting vote he cast while on the Texas Supreme Court in 1998. The case revolved around whether the Kirby Co. should be held liable for not having conducted a background check prior to hiring a subcontractor to do in-home vacuum cleaner demonstrations.
The man in question, Mickey Carter, had a past criminal conviction, and raped a Seguin, Texas, woman in 1993 during one of the demonstrations.
Though the court ruled 6-3 against Kirby, Abbott argued in his dissent that "Kirby retained control over where the work was to be performed, not over who was to perform that work. Failure to require background checks of potential dealers relates to who is a dealer, not where the dealer works. As a result, the requisite relation between the control retained and the alleged injury is missing."
The one-minute spot, first reported by The Daily Caller, hammered Abbot for siding with the company.
"Greg Abbott sided with the company against the victim, saying the company had no responsibility. Thank God this time, Greg Abbott lost," the ad concludes.
Abbott campaign spokeswoman Amelia Chasse issued a statement to the Daily Caller in response to the ad, which she called "despicable":
This ad is a continuation of the type of rhetoric we've seen from a candidate who is paper-thin on substance and running a failing campaign devoid of any real vision for the future of Texas. Texans deserve better than the gutter politics they are getting from Sen. Davis. No one has a stronger record fighting the heinous crime of sexual assault than Greg Abbott. Not only did he create dedicated units to arrest and prosecute sex offenders and protect women and children from assault, he's responsible for putting more offenders in jail than all of his predecessors combined. In the case referenced in Sen. Davis' despicable ad, Greg Abbott's decision left intact the liability against the sex offender and his employer. No amount of desperate distortion attempts or token ad buys by Sen. Davis can change the facts of Greg Abbott's record of fighting for Texans.
HuffPost Pollster has Abbott leading Davis ahead of the November general election:
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