WASHINGTON — The National JACL is concerned by a video ad that has appeared on YouTube within the past week.
The amateurish video targets GOP presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman and questions his “American values” by highlighting his two adopted daughters, Gracie May from China and Asha from India.
The video features Huntsman speaking in Mandarin (he is former U.S. ambassador to China) and even implies his adopted daughters are biological.
“The political ad displays blatant anti-Chinese and anti-Indian sentiment by focusing on Huntsman’s involvement in the native cultures of Gracie May and Asha and implicates his actions as ‘un-American,’ ” the JACL said in a statement. “Conversely, the JACL believes Huntsman should be applauded for raising a multicultural family.”
It is still uncertain who is behind this ad, but it has been uploaded to YouTube four different times by NHLiberty4Paul, NH4Santorum, NHLiberty4Huntsman, and NHFreedom4Romney.
Huntsman reacted to the ad by stating, “If someone wants to poke fun at me, that’s OK. What I object to is bringing forward pictures and videos of my adopted daughters and suggesting there’s something sinister there.”
The Ron Paul campaign officially condemned the ad and denied any affiliation with its creators, but there has yet to be an official response from the other Republican presidential candidates.
“Using the divisive issue of race to downgrade a candidate is the worst kind of political campaigning and only fuels xenophobic attitudes,” the JACL said. “The JACL condemns this overtly racist campaign ad and calls on the other GOP runners to disavow such racist political campaigning.”
Are you serious? Huntsman did this himself? Milked it? He’s not a sleaze. What evidence do you have he did this himself? Huntsman is a stand up guy. Great father to this girls, and is the only candidate that started talking about what he could do not that the other candidates were about. He was selling himself instead of smack talking like the rest.
There is considerable evidence that Huntsman did this himself, to denigrate Ron Paul. I suspect putting it up under all the other candidates names afterwards, is a lame attempt to diffuse the situation, now that Huntsman has milked it for all it’s worth, and throw suspicion onto others, keeping his name out of it. Lame, and unbelievable. He is such a sleaze, and I thought that just from seeing him campaign here in NH, and I never knew anything about his kids, much less that he adopted kids.