Sen. Zeb Little, D-Cullman, says an Alabama Republican Party mail-out circulating throughout District 4 that depicts his likeness sitting with an open Hawaiian-style shirt, gray chest hair and holding an alcoholic drink, is a clear distortion and borderline “libelous.”

Little stated Friday he is seriously considering legal action against the Alabama Republican Party, which paid for the mail-outs.

“They’re libelous and slanderous. They are a clear distortion. You only have to glimpse at it to see that they took my picture off the Internet and place my face on someone else’s body. It’s a person sitting with an open shirt with gray chest hair, holding a drink with the wording ‘Taking Gambling Junkets to the Bahamas,” across the top,” Little said. “As local bank president and current president of the Alabama Bankers Association Robin Cummings recently explained in a letter to the editor appearing in the Cullman Times, he invited me and my wife to come and speak to a Bankers Association conference. He even took his grandchildren with him. This isn’t right and I’m seriously considering filing suit against the state Republican Party.”

Little said he spoke to his opponent, Republican nominee Harold Sachs, about the mail-outs at a function last Saturday and again during a Thursday taping of a television forum in Cullman that is slated to be televised next week.

“Mr. Sachs told me he didn’t pay for the ads. They were paid for by the Alabama Republican Party because it states that on the mail-outs. I asked him if he supported that kind of distorted attack and he laughed it off, commenting that it could my head and his body, since he has gray chest hairs,” Little said. “I asked him again if he condoned this type of distortion and slanderous advertising and he never gave me a direct answer.”

Little and Sachs, along with Alabama House of Representatives incumbents and their opponents, participated in Friday’s Cullman Area Chamber of Commerce Forum. During closing remarks, Little commented that he and has family had taken “some hits” during the past week as a result of the doctored photograph and GOP attacks.

“But the hits we’ve taken this week are nothing compared to the hits that families have taken when they’ve been fired from their job and their job is sent overseas,” Little said.

The reference was taken from the context of a chief executive officer’s letter to the shareholders of Celestica dated 2005. Contained in the annual report is a statement that references the company’s expansion into so-called “lower cost regions” such as Asia, Mexico and the Czech Republic. The report goes on to note that a total of 18,510 employees were released from the business as of Dec. 31, 2003, and that approximately 70 percent of those terminations (roughly 13,000) were in the Americas.

Following Friday’s forum, Sachs was asked about his knowledge of the mail-outs, some of which depict Little as a “friend to the alcohol lobby,” a proponent of “higher taxes, freeing criminals,” and being a “puppet of special interests.”

“The people who are doing the advertisements for us, how they do the advertisements, and what I told Zeb as far as how they put the articles together, and what I will stand behind 100 percent, are the facts. The facts I agree totally with,” Sachs said.

The facts contained in that particular mail-out, according to Sachs, charge Little with taking thousands of dollars from PACS supported by gambling, trial lawyers and union bosses. The ad alleges Little votes for gambling expansion in Mobile and Green counties, votes for Bingo for the books, and has been flown to gambling resorts in the Bahamas at the expense of his lobbyist friends.

As for the doctored photograph.

“Is it my picture? I joked with him (Little) and said maybe it was his head and my chest. It was a joke,” Sachs said. “The articles we’re sending out there — there are different ways of presenting a story. You have to present it where people will not throw it in the garbage. And how the company we’ve hired to do this for us, I believe the people are reading them. Some people it makes them mad, it comes across as negative. Other people are reading them for the information they contain and the facts back it up.”

Told that Little is considering filing a lawsuit against the Alabama Republican Party for the ads, which he termed “libelous” and “slanderous,” Sachs said that is his decision to make.

“He can certainly do that, but if he does that then the ad he is running about our company Celestica can be characterized in the same way. I forwarded his ad to Celestica’s legal counsel,” Sachs said.

“This is a campaign we’re running and we’ve got to get our message across as for what each of us stand for. And how we do that, that’s his option. When you listen to his radio ad you’ll understand that quite well I think,” Sachs added. “We’re both going pretty aggressive at each other. We’re wanting to make sure the voters know there is a clear choice between us.”

Little admitted that he doesn’t know his opponent very well, “but I think he’s getting some bad outside advice.”

“All over the nation, politics have gotten nasty. I ran two races before this, one against the late Sen. Don Hale and the other against former Gov. Guy Hunt and I never said an unkind word about either one of them,” Little said. “I have a thick skin when it comes to this sort of thing. You have to if you’re going to be in politics, but I have a 9 year old son who can read and he sees me portrayed in a negative light and I feel bad for him. I do wish the candidates could debate the issues and the record without distorting the facts.”

In response to Little’s possible legal action against the Alabama Republican Party, Tim Howe, executive director, supported the mail-out campaign.

“It is time the people of Senate District 4 know exactly how Zeb Little has voted and conducted himself in Montgomery,” Howe said.

Jim Spearman, executive director of the Alabama Democratic Party, called the campaign “politics at its worst.”

“I know Zeb Little and I know the people of Cullman County and his Senate district. He has been a senator who has looked out for their interests in Montgomery. This portrayal of him is completely out of character,” Spearman said. “Republicans have taken this to a new low this year. They have crossed the line of decency. I call on them to pull their mail-out campaign. I also call on them to issue a public apology to Sen. Little and the people of his district.”