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Show County Leaders Unite Behind Swallow, Call For Matheson To Apologize ST. GEORGE, Utah - More than half a hundred elected officials offi-cials and area leaders on Monday united behind John Swallow, Republican nominee for Congress for the 2nd District and former state representative, after Democrat Jim Matheson launched false media ads misconstruing mis-construing Swallow's position on nuclear testing. "We are writing today to express our disappointment with the content and tactics surrounding surround-ing your campaign's television advertising," begins a letter to Rep. Matheson signed by local leaders outraged over these tactics. tac-tics. "Your attempt to portray John Swallow as being tolerant of renewed nuclear testing is simply sim-ply untrue. In the spirit of accuracy accu-racy and fairness, we ask you to discontinue your attempt to mis construe John Swallow's position posi-tion on this important issue," the letter further states. A recent television ad paid for by Jim Matheson's campaign opens with images of Republican nominee John Swallow in front of a detonating nuclear weapon. The announcer gravely tells viewers, "John Swallow ignored local concerns. Swallow pledged to follow national party leaders to support research of new nuclear weapons that would lead to new nuclear testing." test-ing." In fact, however, according accord-ing to US Senator Bob Bennett and others, the potential weapons in question would never require live testing as implied by the Matheson campaign. cam-paign. An Oct. 14, 2004 article in the Deseret Morning News quoted Senator Bennett saying: "The main thing I want you to understand is that we can produce pro-duce nuclear weapons without ever testing them," Bennett added. "We can design weapons by computer. In fact, we can and are designing a bunker buster bomb by computer simulation and don't need to test it." "Technology today has made it possible for America to remain on the forefront of weapons research without ever requiring live tests of the systems sys-tems in question," said Tim Garon, Swallow for Congress campaign manager. "These scare-tactics are shameful and a disservice to Utahns who expect more from their public servants." ser-vants." (Editor's Note: The letter referred to above is published in an advertisment on page 2 with the names of county leaders who agreed to it.) |