INDIANAPOLIS – Rep. Braun is finally pulling down a TV ad 10 days after first being criticized by the widow of a slain Uber driver for using her deceased husband in it, but he hasn’t explained why he’s taken it down now nearly two weeks after the controversy began.
Rep. Braun announced Saturday that he’d pulled down a campaign ad featuring Jeffrey Monroe, an Uber driver who was killed by a drunk driver in the country illegally. The ad found itself at the center of controversy after WTHR spoke with Mr. Monroe’s widow, who was outraged by the ad and said Rep. Braun or his campaign had not asked how she’d feel about her husband appearing in the ad or even given her warning about it airing. Not only did Mrs. Monroe and her late husband strongly disagree with the positions Rep. Braun espoused in his ad, she repeatedly asked his campaign to stop running it and did not receive a response.
Rep. Braun finally told the Herald Republican this weekend that he’d pulled the spot, 10 days after Mrs. Monroe first made her anger known. He has yet to explain what changed that made him take the ad down or why an ad that was acceptable 10 days ago despite Mrs. Monroe’s requests to pull the ad now was no longer to be aired.
Rep. Braun wasn’t the only candidate to politicize this tragedy, as Congressmen Messer and Rokita also politicized Jeffrey Monroe’s death to discuss their positions on immigration before offering condolences to his family.
“While most decent people would respect the privacy of a grieving widow, Rep. Braun tried to exploit a widow’s grief for political gain instead. For the 10 days that ad remained up, Rep. Braun showed Hoosiers he doesn’t care about how they feel, he just expects them to vote for them,” said Michael Feldman, spokesman for the Indiana Democratic Party. “What changed, Rep. Braun, that you finally felt the need to take down the ad this weekend? And why didn’t you have the decency to do so when Mrs. Monroe first asked you?”
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