Saturday September 22, 2018
It’s hard to get six siblings to agree on anything.
But the family of Republican congressman Paul Gosar, who is running for re-election in a deeply conservative Arizona district, has offered a unified message to voters in a blistering political attack ad.
“Paul is absolutely not working for his district,” says lawyer David Gosar.
“Paul Gosar the congressman isn’t doing anything to help rural America,” says physician Grace Gosar.
“It’s intervention time. And intervention time means that you go to vote, and you go to vote Paul out,” says Tim Gosar, a private investigator.
The stunning ad was released Friday by Democratic candidate David Brill, who hopes to unseat Gosar when voters in Arizona’s Fourth Congressional District head to the polls on Nov. 6.
Brill earned an endorsement from all six siblings – David, Jennifer, Joan, Grace, Tim and Gaston – who each voiced serious concerns about their brother’s leadership.
In a series of videos, the siblings criticize Gosar’s hardline stance on immigration, his support for U.S. President Donald Trump’s border wall, his track record on the environment and his position on health care.
In one video, Grace Gosar labels her brother a racist.
“If he actually cared about people in rural Arizona, I bet he’d be fighting for social security, for better access to health care,” says Jennifer Gosar, a medical interpreter.
The Republican candidate has previously come under fire for flying to England over the summer to voice support for an extremist anti-Muslim organization. Gosar has also spread a conspiracy theory that the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, where one woman was killed by a self-identified white supremacist, was actually plotted by left-wing organizers to damage Trump.
Gosar’s family members admit it wasn’t easy to speak out.
“None of this is pleasant for any of us,” David Gosar says.
“To speak up against my brother, it brings sadness to me,” says Joan Gosar.
Whether or not speaking out will make much of a difference is up for debate. Gosar has represented the rural district since 2011. In 2016, he was re-elected to the job with 71 per cent of the vote.
Regardless, the Gosar siblings urge voters to hear them out.
“We’ve got to stand up for our good name. This is not who we are,” David Gosar says.
“I think my brother has traded a lot of the values we had at our kitchen table,” says Joan Gosar.
“This isn’t just about Paul. This is about our family,” Jennifer Gosar says.