The candidates for Arizona's open Senate seat are competing hard for the women's vote as well as the Latino vote, giving the ad particular potency as it pits a woman of Cuban heritage against a Democrat who is a man of Puerto Rican descent.
The ad's target is Dr. Richard Carmona, 63, who was President Bush's Surgeon General for one term (2002-2006) and who is running as a Democrat in his first run for public office. In 2006, Republicans asked him to be their candidate for Congress and he refused. The seat was won by Gabrielle Giffords, D-AZ.
The day after the Flake campaign ad launched, Dr. Carmona responded at a news conference that his accuser had "lied." And in an 11 minute interview with a quietly hostile and uninformed interviewer on Arizona Republic's Channel 12 in Phoenix, Dr. Carmona calmly rejected all allegations and called on Rep. Flake to pull the ad "because it's false." Arizona Republic has endorsed Rep. Flake.
Attacker and Candidate Were Colleagues
Under Bush
The woman in the ad is Dr. Cristina V. Beato, a former Bush administration Acting Assistant Secretary of Health, U.S. Health and Human Services Department (HHS) (2003-2005), when she was Dr, Carmona's superior and supervisor most of that time. Her nomination to be full Assistant Secretary stalled in 2004 over the reliability of her resume. Given the number of apparently false claims in the resume, the Senate never formally considered her nomination.
Dr. Beato has alleged that, during 2003-2005, when both doctors lived near each other on the campus of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD, Dr. Carmona came "pounding" on her door at night on two occasions. She does not specify dates or times, or much other detail, and she made no known complaint at the time.
She first reported the alleged events to five congressional staffers in a secret two and a half hour interview session in November 2007, with no Congressmen present. This was part of a Congressional investigation into alleged manipulation of science for political ends during the Bush administration, in which Dr. Carmona was a prime accuser.
Congressional staff assured Dr. Beato in 2007 that her interview would not become public. Politico obtained and published a copy of the transcript in May 2012.
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