Brown suggests Warren uses actors in asbestos ads - Taunton, MA - The Taunton Daily Gazette

TAUNTON —
U.S. Sen. Scott Brown suggested Wednesday that his Democratic opponent Elizabeth Warren used actors in her advertisements defending the legal work she did asbestos-related lawsuits.
But two of the people in the advertisements have said that’s not the case.

Brown made the statement during a campaign stop at the Taunton Fire Department’s central station on Wednesday morning.

During a question and answer session, one firefighter commented that both campaigns are publishing advertisements featuring family members of victims of asbestos-related illness. He asked Brown how Warren gets the victims’ family members to go on her commercial.

“A lot of them are paid,” Brown said. “We hear that maybe they pay actors. Listen, you can get surrogates and go out and say your thing. We have regular people in our commercials. No one is paid. They are regular folks that reach out to us and say she is full of it.”

One of the ads, entitled “Ashamed,” features Kingston resident Ginny Jackson, whose husband died of mesothelioma after working at a Quincy shipyard that was filled with asbestos.

Reached through the Warren campaign, Jackson responded to Brown’s comments, calling them offensive.

“What Scott Brown said today is so offensive to me and my family after what we went through,” Jackson said. “He’s sunk to a new low.”

Jackson said going through her husband Sam’s sickness and death from mesothelioma was one of the most difficult situations she ever endured.

“Sam and I were childhood sweethearts and we had been together since I was 15 years old,” Jackson said. “I came forward in this campaign because Massachusetts voters need to know the truth about what Elizabeth Warren did to help families like mine who were affected by asbestos poisoning, rather than Sen. Brown’s misleading attacks.”

Brown pointed to legal work the Harvard professor was involved with, on behalf of Dow Chemical, related to silicone breast implant safety problems and LTV Steel, involving employee health benefits.

Brown’s message is that Warren says she is working on behalf of the little guy, but that in reality she really is not.

John F. English, who appeared in another one of Warren’s ads talking about his father who died from mesothelioma, was more direct in his response to Brown’s “actor” comment.

“Let Scott Brown tell me to my face that I am nothing but a paid actor, and I’ll set him straight on what it was like to watch my father suffocate to death,” English said.


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