After DC808 reported on Tuesday that Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., would be a “special guest” at a Washington fundraiser for former Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle, Rep. Mazie Hirono’s campaign sent out an email blast calling the Blunt-Lingle partnership “outrageous.”

Late Tuesday night, Lingle’s campaign fired back, and suggested that Hirono was “trying to distract the public and the media from the fact that she refuses to debate the person who is her opponent — former Congressman Ed Case.”

Case and Hirono will face off in an August Democratic primary before the general election. 

The Lingle response — attributed to campaign manager Bob Lee — decried the Hirono campaign’s “personal attacks,” but also ripped Hirono’s character by calling her “inappropriate” and “ill-equipped to be a U.S. senator.”

“Whatever the purpose of the Hirono campaign’s personal attacks today against Governor Lingle and U.S. Senator Roy Blunt, they make one thing crystal clear,” Lee wrote. “Mazie Hirono does not have the demeanor or temperament to be a United States Senator.”

Lee also wrote that Lingle does not support “the broadly crafted language” of the controversial Blunt amendment, which failed to reverse the Obama administration’s policy on birth control coverage last week. 

The Lingle camp has not responded to DC808’s Tuesday afternoon inquiry about Lingle’s position on the amendment and a request to interview the governor while she’s in Washington, other than to provide Lee’s statement.