Mercer 'Heard a Story' and Relates it in Radio Broadcast

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Since when is hearsay accepted as fact? When the Tea Party is involved, that's when.

Gabriela Saucedo Mercer "heard a story" about her opponent, incumbent Raul Grijalva, that he was "dropping the F bomb" in a restaurant and related it in a radio broadcast on KNST Oct 1 with angry white guy Garret Lewis, who sounds a LOT like Glen Beck, and who coddled Mercer through a gratuitous 22 minute interview that she "felt ... went very well,"  Lewis assisted her with her talking points but avoided challenging her with any hard questions on any serious issues.

Garret Lewis

Lewis launched the program with a recording of Raul Grijalva's call for boycott from 2010, belittling the issue in the process, then mentioned "this other woman" Libertarian candidate Blanca Guerra, about whom Mercer offered "You can also call her Bridegroom."

"Bridegroom? Why is that?" Lewis asks. "Because she recently just changed her married name to her maiden name so she can sound more Latina." 

"You're kidding me." says Lewis. "What was her married name?" "Bridegroom" says Mercer. "Blanca Bridegroom. She's married to a local attorney here in town." The banter goes back and forth, until Lewis says "oh, very sneaky," then calls Grijalva "The Burro."

The program revolved around the recent Candidate Forum at Rio Rico High School where Mercer was confronted before an audience of 100 people about her ultra hot rhetoric and lack of  empathy. She recounted a moment that didn't get reported by any of the news outlets covering the event, and made the assertion that when she was asked about her "middle easterner" comments she was talked over by Grijalva before she could even speak.

SB 1070 protesters

"It was my turn to answer the question and Grijalva proceeded to answer the question," she told host Lewis. Then she recounted Grijalva's comment about her "beating the dead horse" of his call for boycott in 2010 against SB 1070, a bill which she supported. 

"... And I go whoa, 27,000 jobs is a dead horse?" she said she said. Host Lewis continued to walk her through the story, rearranging the events she related to him as they went along. "27,000 jobs, that's how many jobs were lost?" he said as if he had never heard the tale before. He did not ask her how she came up with that number and she did not offer any substantiation. Mercer went on to say that the jobs lost were in the hotel and tourist industries. 

"The Rockefellers and the Joneses and the Smiths were not the ones that lost their jobs," she said. "It was the people that were hurt the most were the people working in the hotels and the service industry."

"He still defends the boycott," she went on. "He still says that Arizona is a racist state when Arizona was put against the wall by the federal government for not doing their job, and that's the bottom line."

"Wow, this is incredible," said Lewis.

Both Mercer and her handler conveniently overlooked historical facts that recall how the passage of SB 1070 in 2010 brought unto the state a massive outrage from all corners of the globe. From Los Angeles to New York, officials passed boycott Arizona bills and cancelled contracts for conventions and events and business dealings with the state and with Arizona based companies. 

SB 1070 protesters

Thousands marched in protest, petitions were signed and delivered, students chained themselves to public buildings, arrests were made, and tension was high on the issue almost everywhere. The private sector participated as well, cancelling contracts and commitments across the board and it is estimated the act cost Arizona $90 million in revenue. Grijalva's call for boycott did little to provoke this phenomenon, and to insinuate that he alone was responsible for this backlash is not just ridiculous, it's an out and out lie.

At the time the NY Daily News quoted Phoenix mayor Phil Gordon saying  "I'm fielding calls even internationally now. This has taken on a worldwide life and it is going to cause irreparable damage."

"Several politicians and even a few players" urged Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig  to relocate the 2011 All-Star Game from Arizona to anywhere else, according to the report, but the MLB was one of the few entities to stay in the state in the wake of the bill's passage.

AZfamily.com reported in April 2010 that Todd Landfried, with Arizona Employers for Immigration Reform, said, “If you had the chance of locating a business where your top execs are Latino…you're going to put them in an environment where they can be pulled over for whatever reason because somebody might have reasonable suspicion?"

 

The actual boycott from outside the region and the call from Grijalva, who rightly called the measure "unconstitutional", "discriminatory" and "fundamentally racist" was aimed at pressuring the legislature led by Governor Jan Brewer to move away from it's unpopular and legally flawed approach to solving the state's very serious illegal immigration issue, a matter on which Grijalva "gives the president a 'D' for how he’s handled" it.

The contentious bill, sponsored by the embattled Russell Pierce who was recalled for his work on the bill, was challenged by the federal government and dissected by the Supreme Court, which struck some provisions and kept others. The law went into effect in August this year and allows police to question and detain suspects who have improper citizen identification. Legal challenges abound and are still pending, costing the state millions.

Mercer went on to recount her accusation from the forum that Grijalva's 5 term history is "pathetic"  and that "right out of the textbook from the DNC and MSNBC they start using the race card."

"You should be judged on your record" Lewis says, never asking Mercer about hers. "I don't even know what he has done," said the "impartial" Lewis. "I mean I don't think anyone can name one thing that he has done that has been a positive." 

"Uh, well there is a school named after him," Mercer said. "I mean how has he added to peoples' incomes? I mean, there's nothing there," Lewis retorts.

In his defense, a quick glance at Grijalva's website reveals that the congressman has brought over  $37 million in funding for projects just toYuma alone..

The program continues it's Grijalva bashing as Mercer again attempts to defend her controversial comments, recounting Mercer's version of minute details from the Forum until Lewis turns the focus from Grijalva's "attacks" on Mercer to his not attacking President Obama and later Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, with Lewis holding them personally responsible for the murder of Libyan Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

The accusation is so absurd, that Lewis hadn't "heard [Grijalva] condemn the President for not having the proper security" at the embassy in Libya,one has to ask what planet these two are on. Why, in the middle of a local candidate forum, that the incumbent representative for southern Arizona should choose to criticize  the President and Secretary of State for an international issue rather than focus on the candidate opposing his office sitting just inches away is quite ludicrous.

"Raul Grijalva's not focusing on that," Lewis says, "he's focusing on ... " "How racist I am," Mercer provides.

After the break they turn to Blanca Guerra, and theorize that she is a pawn of Grijalva, placed in the race merely to draw votes away from Mercer but then Lewis momentarily mentions her funding cut from the National Republican Congressional Committee, only to quickly turn to short talking Grijalva again.

Mitt Romney quote

Lewis calls Grijalva voters "brainwashed" but then Mercer echoes Presidential candidate Mitt Romneys' now famous 47% speech when she says "Some people are hard core and they will vote for [Grijalva] no matter what."

"The way he votes is against your values, it is against what you what you believe," Mercer says. "It's un American" Lewis extolls. "I mean the fact that he came out with 'The People's Budget' ... it reminds me of something that's not very American at all."

Oil Subsidy chart - IMF

Mercer reiterated her opinion of  "The subsidies of the big bad oil companies" claiming that "When I did my research, there's no subsidies for the oil companies. It's tax incentives, like for any other corporation" then goes on to say that "if you want to call it a subsidy, the oil and gas companies get 64 cents per kilowatt." Lewis does not seek clarification on what that means. Mercer mentions Solyndra and subsidies to solar companies.

They talk about the Affordable Care Act by calling it "Obamacare" and the "horrors of socialized medicine", "Fast and Furious" where despite the Inspector General's report to the contrary, they both blame "higher ups in D.C." The IG report named 14 individuals for discipline. Neither Lewis or Mercer mentioned that.

Mercer is running on a platform of tighter border security, protection for unborn children and defense of gun rights but her campaign for Congressional District 3 against Grijalva is on the ropes, with funding pulled by her party and her endorsements from prominent Tea Partiers like VP candidate Paul Ryan, Republican AZ Secretary of State Ken Bennett, the Border Patrol union's Tucson chapter and AZ Governor Jan Brewer all but forgotten, although she is sharing the stage with former Presidential candidate Herman Cain Oct. 2 at the Viscount Suite Hotel. Despite the push from Cain, her campaign is low on funds and high on challenges as she tries to win over a 2/3 majority Democratic region of 700,000 with  33 days to the election.

You can hear the interview as a podcast here from KNST:  

http://www.knst.com/player/?station=KNST-AM&program_name=podcast&program_id=interviews.xml&mid=22490193

She relates the stories she heard about Grijalva at 8:18