The IT team has been accusing the HY campaign of \u201cdirty campaigning,\u201d but the latest tactic to smear Heinz Hofschneider takes the cake for being the \u201cdirtiest,\u201d if not the lowest and most insensitive tactic thus far in the campaign.<\/p>\n
Last Friday, a letter was shared on Facebook that was meant as an attack on Hofschneider\u2019s character. The letter was from the late justice Ramon G. Villagomez accusing then-speaker Hofschneider of doing wrong. I\u2019m not sure who initially leaked the letter, but I first saw it shared on Les Ogumoro-Uludong\u2019s account, shared from a post by Shelane Charlice. It has since been shared on the official CNMI Republican Facebook account and also on the \u201cIT Squad\u201d page.<\/p>\n
My biggest issue with the letter is that it uses the words of the late justice, who is deceased and has a great legacy in our community. How dare you let a well-respected and deceased man in our community fight your fights? You have now put his surviving wife and children in a position where they must defend their late father! Leaking this letter was done neither with the family\u2019s consent nor their endorsement. You choose to smear Heinz\u2019s reputation with the words of a man whose wife and children are still around to witness such exploitation. That\u2019s low and shows that the IT camp is not thinking.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know who this Shelane is, but Les is a well-known daughter of Rep. Felicidad Ogumoro. This is a shame. I\u2019ve been following the elections and Rep. Ogumoro had run a clean, honorable campaign. It is sad that one of her supporters would come out and share this. And it is a shame that the CNMI Republicans are capitalizing on it, too. This is defamation.<\/p>\n
You all owe an apology to the Villagomez family. I would expect an apology from all those who shared the letter as well as one from Rep. Felicidad Ogumoro, as one of her most visible supporters thought it was alright to use the \u201cOgumoro\u201d family name by sharing the letter. You don\u2019t have your supporters do your party\u2019s dirty work and get away with it. We don\u2019t dishonor the dead like this in our culture. This is unbecoming of the entire Republican Party.<\/p>\n
From what I\u2019m told, the Villagomez family is not happy about this and would rather have it taken down.<\/p>\n
When a man isn\u2019t around to defend himself, don\u2019t use his words to do your dirt. As respect to the governor\u2019s health, we saw Democratic candidate Edward Deleon Guerrero and Heinz both back off from the first scheduled Chamber forum. The sentiment that some got was that \u201cthe governor isn\u2019t around to defend himself\u201d (although Juan N. Babauta didn\u2019t feel that same way), which is important in having a fair discussion on the issues.<\/p>\n
So, I ask that both parties: Keep it clean. How about we keep the election to being about the issues, not trying to smear candidates? Why use a dead man\u2019s words when our candidates can use their own words to persuade us?<\/p>\n
Governor Inos has yet to accept the invitation to a forum and said a few days ago to the paper, \u201cThe campaign committee is looking at that right now and they will make a final recommendation and give their advice.\u201d What\u2019s there to recommend? What\u2019s there to advise? The people want a forum! What\u2019s there to hide from the people that the governor has to be recommended? If his health is a detriment to his participation, will it be in his term if he\u2019s elected? The people of the CNMI should not go without a candidates\u2019 forum before making a decision as important as deciding the next gubernatorial team that will lead us for the next four years.<\/p>\n
Marie Camacho<\/strong> The IT team has been accusing the HY campaign of \u201cdirty campaigning,\u201d but the latest…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[26,55,1319,133],"class_list":["post-185354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters-to-the-editor","tag-cnmi","tag-health-2","tag-republican-party","tag-run"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185354\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nCapital Hill, Saipan<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"