Josh Mandel to stop airing controversial television ad with reference to a mosque

mandel-boyce.jpgRepublican Josh Mandel, left, and Democratic state Treasurer Kevin Boyce.

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Josh Mandel, the Republican candidate for Ohio treasurer, has decided to stop airing a controversial TV commercial that associated his opponent Kevin Boyce with a mosque.

The 30-second commercial will run through the weekend and then will be replaced with another ad, said Joe Aquilino, Mandel's political director.

"We're moving in another direction," he said.

Mandel's decision to stop airing the commercial comes on the heels of an avalanche of criticism directed at him due to the ad's religious overtones.

The Ohio Democratic Party has said it contains "subtle bigotry."

This week, the party filed a complaint with the Ohio Elections Commission saying the ad is false. Multiple newspapers also have condemned the commercial for tapping into anti-Muslim biases.

The commercial, which began airing last week, weaves religion into a criticism of three banking contracts Boyce awarded earlier this year. The ad points out that Boyce hired the wife of a lobbyist for the bank that eventually won the contracts through a competitive bidding process.

"Boyce gave (the lobbyist's) wife a sensitive job in the Treasurer's office. A job Boyce admitted he only made available at their mosque," the ad's narrator said.

Boyce's deputy, Amer Ahmad, told The Plain Dealer earlier this year that he announced an office assistant's job opening at his Columbus-area mosque to encourage people to apply. The lobbyist's wife was hired for the job. Ahmad has since denied making those comments.

Boyce's campaign released two commercials of its own in response to Mandel's attack. The commercials referenced Boyce's Christian faith.

Mandel's campaign said they stand behind the facts in the ad. Aquilino, citing The Plain Dealer report, said today that Ahmad was acting as representative of Boyce's office when he announced the job opening at the mosque, therefore justifying the commercial's claim that Boyce made the job available there.

Aquilino would not say if the decision to stop airing the ad was a response to the recent criticism.

Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern today called the ad "sickening."

Mandel "deserves no credit for 'taking it down,' since the ad was reportedly scheduled to stop airing anyway," Redfern said in a statement. "After all, it's taken Josh Mandel eight days and a million dollars to act on an ad that the rest of Ohio already knows is scummy, bigoted and untrue."

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