The race for governor in Arizona is heating up big time. So what are the parties attacking each other about? Stock photos.
Current Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is not running for re-election this year, leaving Republican candidate Doug Ducey to battle Democratic candidate Fred Duval for Arizona's gubernatorial seat in November.
It's a tight race, according to many local media outlets, and that's causing plenty of mudslinging from both parties — leading to this attack ad against Ducey.
"What if you lost everything? Went bankrupt? Lost your home? Your life savings? That's what happened to a group of Cold Stone Creamery franchise owners. They said company president Doug Ducey used 'dishonest business practices.'"
Compelling, emotional and thought-provoking, right? Only problem is, those who "lost everything" thanks to Ducey didn't actually lose anything thanks to him.
Those were instead stock images from photo agency Getty Images.
Now, for reference, the ad was calling out Ducey, the former CEO of Cold Stone Creamery, for what some have called his questionable business practices while in charge of the ice cream chain.
Arizona's Republican party called out the makers of the ad, reportedly the pro-DuVal PAC Restore Arizona's Future. Arizona Republican Party Chairman Robert Graham had strong words for the ad creators, saying: "We've come to expect sleazy campaign tactics from the Democrats but this one crosses the line. If these Democrats want to talk about 'dishonest business practices', they've just given voters a prime example by using their own dishonesty."
The Washington Free Beacon points out both women featured in the video can be found on Getty's site by searching "sad woman." Also, the first man can be found by searching "mature man" and the last guy was plucked from Getty's "Why Series," according to the outlet.
Stock images in political ads aren't new.
In fact, Ducey's camp seems to have a keen eye and blasted candidate Scott Smith earlier this year for putting b-roll of a Slovenian family in one of his ads.
And it happened so often during the 2012 presidential campaign that BuzzFeed had enough examples to make a list of both President Obama and Mitt Romney ads that used stock images.
DuVal's camp has not yet responded to Ducey's accusations.
This video includes images from Getty Images.
