By Craig Robinson

A couple days ago, the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee began airing an ad against Congressman Tom Latham titled, “Devastating.”

The ad features Lynne Carter of Winterset, Iowa.  Carter tells a tail about her job being shipped overseas.  She says that some people were literally left out in the cold with no retirement or health benefits.  To make matters worse, Carter says that she was forced to train her replacement from India.

Carter then blames it all on Congressman Tom Latham.

There is just one problem: Carter probably didn’t have a clue who Tom Latham was when she lost her job.  You see, Lynn Carter lost her job when she was working in Florida, not Iowa as the ad makes it seem. Even worse, the vote that the DCCC mistakenly claims Latham took to “outsource” her job took place six years after the company closed after being purchased by a Texas company.

The ad claims that, “Latham voted to keep giving government contracts to companies that outsource our jobs.”  However, the vote they cite is a motion to recommit on a non-binding resolution.  Neither the motion to recommit nor the underlying bill it applied to could do anything to affect government contracts at all, let alone “keep giving government contracts to companies that outsource our jobs.”

Iowans have come to expect the worse from Congressman Leonard Boswell and his friends at the DCCC when it comes to campaign ads, but their latest attempt at smearing Congressman Latham is a new low.  While the Boswell campaign continues to scrape the bottom of the barrel for attacks on Tom Latham, Iowans are still wondering if Leonard Boswell will ever run a positive ad about his own accomplishments.

Below is the DCCC ad blaming Latham for something that occurred in Florida that he had nothing to do with.

What: DCCC/Boswell Says… “When our jobs were shipped overseas, some people were literally left out in the cold.”

Truth: Woman in the ad (Lynne Carter) worked for a company called Excell Agent Services that was located in Brevard County, Florida – that closed in 2004/2005 was bought by a Texas-based company in January 2005 (see below). It was never located in Iowa. She is from Florida – her parents still live there.