Arizona GOP Congressional Candidate Saucedo Mercer Now Takes on “Middle Easterners”

Aug 29, 2012
8:10 PM

Looks like Arizona Republican candidate for US Congress Gabriela Saucedo Mercer is back in the news. This time, it is not about plagiarized quotes about food stamps.

Now Saucedo Mercer, who is running against Democrat Raúl Grijalva, for Arizona's District 3, has things to say about "Middle Easterners." Here is what CBS Baltimore posted:

“If you know Middle Easterners, a lot of them, they look Mexican or they look, you know, like a lot of people in South America: dark skin, dark hair, brown eyes. And they mix. They mix in. And those people, their only, their only goal in life is to, to cause harm to the United States. So why do we want them here, either legally or illegally?”

The quote appears in the following YouTube video, which was produced by Grijalva supporters.

Saucedo Mercer, who is Mexican-born but later became a US citizen, already called the "dirty politics" card on the Grijalva campaign, when she posted the following on her Facebook site last night:

We have seen the video a few times and yes, the video WAS indeed edited. But the comments Saucedo Mercer made when she talked about "Middle Easterners" don't like altered or edited. If you want to see the whole interview, you can click here.

Other stories are reporting that according to the Saucedo Mercer campaign, her comments were taken out of context. Here is one from therepublic.com:

The comments pointed out by Grijalva were taken out of context, Saucedo Mercer spokeswoman Janice Rimer said Wednesday. Saucedo Mercer told The Arizona Daily Star that Grijalva must be scared of losing in November's general election to be attacking her.

Grijalva's campaign distributed a news release pointing out her comments Tuesday as voters were casting ballots in the primary election. Grijalva handily won his party's primary for Arizona's 3rd Congressional District that night, and Mercer also won easily. The district is viewed as strongly Democratic, and a Republican win is considered unlikely.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday, Grijalva said Saucedo Mercer must be held accountable for her remarks and defended distributing them.

"We had to allow people to see that (tape) so they could begin to distinguish between that kind of extremist rhetoric and the fact that we have a difference in issues that people must evaluate," he said. "She said that. It was not spliced. We didn't take it out of context. The whole interview is there for anyone to watch.

"Those are not my (words), we didn't fabricate them or put them in her mouth, it came out of her own month, and they'll be others," he said.

Saucedo Mercer is a tea party favorite who is making her first foray into politics. In a statement, her campaign said Grijalva used snippets of video interviews with Gabriela Saucedo Mercer to try and "weave a deceptive anti-Middle Eastern message with particular attention placed on a mere fragment of footage used selectively to construct a false narrative."

In the videotaped interview with the online news site Western Free Press, Saucedo Mercer is asked about concerns some people have raised about illegal immigrants the U.S. Border Patrol classifies as "other than Mexicans," who may be from countries antagonistic toward the U.S.

Her full response to the question:

"Of course, its, you think about these 'other than Mexicans.' Just last year, I don't have the numbers, I remember taking notes, but if I remember correctly it was 25,000 that they were able to apprehend, 'other than Mexicans.' That includes Chinese, Middle Easterners. If you know Middle Easterners, a lot of them they look Mexican, they look like a lot of people in South America, dark skin, brown hair, brown eyes, and they mix, they mix in. And those people, their only goal in life is to, to cause harm to the United States. So why do we want them here, either legally or illegally?"

We are still wondering what was taken out of context, but it appears that Saucedo Mercer has become another political rookie who needs to gain a bit more experience when it comes to running for office.