Hudak retracts endorsement by Brown

Bill Hudak, who has launched a challenge to incumbent Democrat John Tierney in the Massachusetts Sixth Congressional District, retracted the endorsement and acknowledged that quotes in the press release had been wrongly attributed to Brown.

"Scott and I had several conversations where he pledged to provide support for me after the election," Hudak said in a press release. "However, as a person new to politics, I took those conversations as permission to move and jumped the gun in the heat of the moment."

The Hudak campaign issued a press release trumpeting the endorsement on Wednesday, after Brown's dramatic upset victory of Democrat Martha Coakley. Brown immediately distanced himself from Hudak.

"I haven't spoken to Bill at all," Brown told reporters on Thursday in Washington. "I understand he made a press release of some sort. But I wasn't aware of it, and we've asked him to retract it."

When asked if he planned to endorse Hudak, Brown dodged, saying he was focusing on his own issues.

In his press release today, Hudak said: "Our campaign misinterpreted his verbal agreement of support from Senator-elect Brown as an approval to proceed with the endorsement announcement. And, we did not follow proper procedure for getting the press release approved by the senator-elect's team."

Hudak has been a controversial candidate because he reportedly questioned President Obama's birth country and posted fliers that portrayed the then-presidential candidate as Osama bin Laden. Hudak today blasted "smear tactics" by left-wing bloggers who are trying to portray him as a "birther" refuting the president's citizenship to "falsely denigrate and accuse Senator-elect Brown of being of that belief."

"Let me make clear that while I don’t agree with everything he does, President Obama is our president, and I believe he was born in the United States, and accusations that he was not are unsupported nonsense and non-issues to the business of our country," Hudak said.