Mississippi Right To Life Responds To Bryant's (indirect) Attacks

After the questioning of the MSRTL PAC endorsement of Ross on message boards and through newspaper opinion columnists, the Mississippi Right To Life responded with this in a press release:

The Phil Bryant campaign continues it efforts to publicly and privately discredit Mississippi Right to Life PAC’s endorsement of Charlie Ross. The MSRTL PAC’s endorsement of Charlie Ross for Lt. Governor stands firm!

Calls and e-mails from Bryant staffers were sent to Right to Life before the endorsement was made public in an effort to intimidate and stop the endorsement. One such e-mail even included a threatening line stating that the Bryant campaign “lawyers” were needing a list of all of the MSRTL board members.

Since the endorsement was made public, the Bryant campaign has continued it’s efforts. PAC Chairperson Barbara Whitehead stated, “MSRTL PAC will not stand idly by and allow paid staffers of Phil Bryant to question the integrity of our organization. Our endorsement process was fair and beyond reproach.”

MSRTL PAC’s endorsement of Charlie Ross was based on exhaustive criteria including: past voting records, candidate questionnaires, candidates public statements, phone and in-person screenings, past involvement in the pro-life movement and candidates willingness to work with the pro-life movement in the future. Additionally all of the voting members of the board that were affiliated with a particular campaign personally did not cast a vote on that particular race. There was not one vote cast against Charlie Ross’s endorsement, although one member of the board did recuse himself.

“The Right to Life endorsement of Charlie Ross was based on criteria that are completely fair,” Whitehead stated. She continued, “Charlie Ross is the best person to serve as Lt. Governor when it comes to Right to Life issues and we continue our call for all pro-life Democrats, Independents and Republicans to vote for Charlie Ross on Aug. 7th.”