LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — The ad starts like any other, with dramatic music, fast-paced video and a clear message: Gov. Joe Lombardo is attacking Attorney General Aaron Ford for skipping work when Ford was actually fighting drug smuggling and human trafficking.
"So don't believe the attacks," said former Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Protective Association President Dave Kallas.
Only one problem: Kallas said that line eight years ago, in another race, for another office, before anybody even thought that Lombardo would run for governor.
WATCH | Senior political reporter Steve Sebelius talked with Kallas about the use of the old footage that has sparked backlash:
Kallas and other cops supported Ford when he ran in 2018 against Republican Wes Duncan for attorney general. Kallas even served on a transition committee for Ford.
But this time around, Kallas — and most of the other police organizations in the state — have backed Lombardo, a former two-term Clark County sheriff.
And the reuse of the old footage didn't go unnoticed. Kallas said he was surprised when someone told him he'd been in a Ford ad.
"How hypocritical is that when you have the top law-enforcement officer in the state willing to lie about the support he has because he needs law-enforcement support and he doesn't have any," Kallas said in an interview with Channel 13. "So he decided he was going to manipulate something from eight years ago, in my opinion."
In response, Ford campaign spokeswoman Prerna Jagadeesh said in a statement, "Attorney General Ford is proud to have earned the support of law enforcement in both past and present campaigns, and we've updated our ad to more clearly reflect that. This is another desperate attempt by Joe Lombardo to distract voters from his record of raising costs and being a doormat for Donald Trump as they run Nevada's economy into the ground."
But a check of Ford's website for endorsements did not show any law-enforcement organizations on the list, although there were many organized labor organizations and the top elected Democrats in the state.
A text asking about Ford's current law-enforcement support wasn't immediately returned by the Ford campaign.
Lombardo's site, by contrast, had more than a dozen law enforcement organizations, including the Metro Police Protective Association, the Metro Managers and Supervisors Association, the Nevada Police Union, the Reno Police Protective Association, the Peace Officers Research Association of Nevada and the Public Safety Alliance of Nevada.
For its part, Lombardo's campaign highlighted a video of Kallas denouncing the Ford ad, and asking, "If Aaron Ford is willing to mislead Nevadans about a campaign endorsement, what else is he willing to mislead us about?"
The Ford campaign also defended itself by saying that Kallas and others had signed waivers in 2018, allowing the campaign to use their endorsement "in perpetuity."
Kallas said the Ford campaign should produce those waivers. He also said recycling the old video was unethical, an abuse of Ford's position and flat-out untruthful.
"My thing is he lied," Kallas said. "He knew he lied. His name's at the bottom of the ad, you know, approved by Ford. So as far as I'm concerned, he's the one to put it in there and so he has to take responsibility for it."
The Ford campaign said the ad will be updated to remove the old footage. In the meantime, Ford launched a new ad, in which he said he will declare "an affordability emergency" if he's elected governor in the Nov. 3 election.
