Shop owners cry foul over new Perry ad
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The owner of a small Austin grocery store whose shop is shown in Republican Gov. Rick Perry's new television advertisement said she doesn't endorse him for re-election.
Farm To Market Grocery owner Peg McCoy said Monday she did not give permission for her shop to be used in Perry's campaign commercial and that she wants the ad to be taken off the air.
Barber Max Berendt of The Avenue Barbershop said he doesn't endorse Perry either. The barber shop is also shown briefly in the advertisement.
"I think one of the smart moves is you don't discuss politics and religion in the barber shop, keeps it a nicer atmosphere, more friendly," Berendt said.
A Perry campaign spokesperson told News 8 the footage was shot from the sidewalk, and the ad will keep running.
In the ad, Perry says,"We've created 850,000 jobs, more than all the other states combined and cut taxes for small businesses."
The spokesperson said the Governor's message in the ad is that he supports policies to help small businesses, even if the business owners don't back him.
"It's easy to make small mistakes and with this environment, as with the ins and outs, the knicks and knacks of a given poll, everything's up for close scrutiny," Jim Henson said.
Henson directs the University of Texas Politics Project. His group, along with the Texas Tribune, released its latest poll Monday showing Perry with 39 percent of the vote, up six points over Democratic challenger Bill White at 33 percent.
Henson said just as campaigns are analyzing the positives and negatives of poll responses, any kind of small mess up, like the latest ad faux pas, will be exploited.
But Henson said the overall message of Perry's latest ad will most likely overshadow the campaigns' rookie mistake.
"The thing is, it plugs directly into people's economic anxiety that we're definitely picking up in polling and allows them to feel better about where they are right now and links the governor to that," Henson said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.