Talking Points Memo: Alicia Ping Sour On Pete Hoekstra After Super Bowl Ad

Talking Points Memo reports that Republican County Commissioner and former Saline City Council member Alicia Ping has soured on Pete Hoekstra's campaign for Senate after the candidate's controversial advertisement was broadcast during the Super Bowl.

In the ad, Hoekstra mocks second-term U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow as "Debbie SpendItNow." The ad features an Asian-American actress speaking broken English as she claims "Debbie spends so much American money ... we take your jobs."

Ping, an Asian-American resident of Saline, told Talking Points Memo writer Evan McMorris-Santoro that the ad was demeaning.

 “If he didn’t know it was racist on some level, then shame on him,” Ping told me in a phone interview Monday night. “He didn’t apologize or say ‘maybe it was over the top’ or anything. He said, ‘I stand by what I believe in’ and, ‘the liberals are just making a bigger thing out of it.’ Well that’s not the case at all. It’s offensive and it’s racist. It’s demeaning to the Asian-American population.”

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