Tedisco On Stimulus, Gillibrand’s Ad For Murphy
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- March
- 13
Republican congressional candidate James Tedisco says he’s shaking up his campaign strategy and taking more control of his campaign message, rather than letting Republicans in Washington influence it.
But he refused to answer today whether he would have voted in favor of the federal stimulus package if he was in Congress.
“Just a yes or no doesn’t necessarily illustrate exactly how you stand on a piece of legislation,” Tedisco said this morning Fred Dicker’s radio show.
Tedisco said it’s a hypothetical question because he’s not in Congress and hasn’t been able to review the 1,100-page federal stimulus plan. He said he would have sought to include amendments in the package “to take out the waste.”
Yet when pressed by Dicker if the amendments failed what would he have done, Tedisco responded: “Again, I’m not going to discuss what I am going to be doing on hypotheticals to that extent, when there’s an 1,100-page document, because it’s not as simple as that.”
His Democratic opponent Scott Murphy has hammered Tedisco in ads for not taking a stand on the stimulus package, which Murphy said he favors.
The stimulus money would be a boost to the 20th District, which stretches from the Hudson Valley to the North Country, but if Tedisco said he would have supported it, that wouldn’t sit well with national Republicans, who opposed the measure.
All of this comes as Tedisco’s lead against Murphy has shrunk to four percentage points in yesterday’s Siena poll.
And Murphy today just released an ad for him by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, whom the candidates are seeking to replace. Gillibrand, a fellow Democrat, had a whopping 78 percent favorable rating in the Siena poll, even though the district has about 70,000 more Republicans than Democrats.
Here’s the ad:
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on Friday, March 13th, 2009 at 10:31 am by Joseph Spector.
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the most important vote taken in the congress in decades
and a candidate won’t tell us whether he would have voted
yes or no?
He might have been astute enough to answer honestly that no one could intelligently cast a vote on an 1100 page document containing billions of dollars in outlay of taxpayer money within 24 hours of receiving it because Nancy Pelosi had to get her hair done and pack for a trip, a vote that included tossing thirty million dollars of pork to be dumped on the Kennedy family in Mass. (just to name one outrageous item in a “stimulus bill”). I usually like Dicker, but he’s playing the ignoramus game here. Ad captandum vulgus. To save everyone time from translating from the Latin – ‘Playing to the ignorant, vulgar crowd.’
this whole tedisco for congress show is a mirror of the disaster that has been the republican assembly campaign committee and opposition efforts under his leadership. he surrounds himself with a bunch rogue over-paid amateurs and he himself is in way over his head, both as minority leader and as a congressional candidate.
it really didn’t matter what the answer was, but refusing
to answer at all is unacceptable..did he not consider
that the question might be asked of him..and did he
not contemplate an answer..if that is the case he
shouldn’t be running for the US congress…just
because he won a local state election..the congress
is another matter..we don’t need more jim bunnings
regardless of party affiliation
How could he not contemplate that the question would be asked? His opponent is, in effect, basing his campaign on this issue. Goes to show how ill-prepared and ideologically ungrounded most of these people are. So long as you’re going to be an idiot, you might as well hire a consultant to answer the questions for you and tutor you on how to proffer a reply. As a matter of fact, maybe the consultants themselves should run. They may or may not have anything of value to add to the discussion, but they would at least know how to talk their way around it while sounding like they actually answered the question. This is how the ordinary talented BS artist becomes a Congressmen or Senator. Caroline Kennedy, listen up.
ed 1 you are so right…but candidates very often
think they are smarter than they are especially
if they have had success at a lower office an
become complacent..Tedesco needs to be able to
respond to Murphy other than declining to answer
because that sends a message either that he
doesn’t know the issue, or is afraid to come
down on either side..both may be the case
but you can’t let the voters know it…
Interestingly, Mr. Tedisco cannot even vote for himself in this election. He doesn’t live in the District. That says it all for me. In any case, Mr. Tedisco is just another politician molded in the fabric that is Albany politics. That’s not someone I’m rushing to endorse.
Mr. Murphy just moved here from Missouri and still has his head in Wall Street. I doubt he knows anything about our District either.
Now, there is Eric Sundwall who lives here, runs his business here, raises his family here and knows the District. He has stated views on all the issues of the day and he’s happy to share those with you.
I’m proud to have the opportunity to pick the best candidate this time around. Mr. Sundwall is far and away the best candidate we have. I hope everyone will take the opportunity to visit his web site and learn more about him.
Morris Guller
Lexington, New York
I wonder how much the DNC spent on Gillibrand’s clothes worn in that ad? I’m sure the media will tell us with as much fervor and venom as they did with someone else’s wardrobe. Who was that again? What party was she in?
I won’t be holding my breath…
I don’t think anybody had to give Gillibrand and new wardrobe, most likely because unlike “someone else” she didn’t show up in a prairie dress with a fleece pullover and faux pearls…
You betcha!!!