Our campaign is on the move. MyDD just listed NY-23 as a "race to watch" and now ... well, well, it looks like our newest ad went viral on the Hill. Somehow (we never sent out a press release or anything), The Hill newspaper got wind of our ad going after John McHugh,
and they featured it today.
Ha! As most of you know, The Hill is the newspaper for, well, the Hill. It's read by just about everyone working in Congress, as well as many others. So ... Representative McHugh has a new perspective on his challenger about now. And you can be sure he's going to go after us now. To which I'll just quote McHugh's favorite President: bring it on.
Article and link to the ad below the flip ...
First, let's take a quick look at
The Hill item:
In the ad, called "Empty Record," a man's voice comes on and says, "Congressman McHugh won an award from The Hill for his crisp suits and fancy ties, but where has he been as billions of our tax dollars are lost to corruption in Iraq?"
The ad unfolds, and McHugh's head disappears. The viewer sees only his torso in a suit and tie. The man's voice concludes: "It's a nice suit, but when it comes to working for us, it's a little bit empty."
Brian Young, Internet and media manager for the Johnson campaign, remarked, "The point is to contrast his sartorial splendor with lack of achievement on things that really matter to voters."
McHugh campaign spokesman Chris Mathey said, "The premise of the ad is so silly and has no relevancy to the issues before us that I'm not going to even dignify [it] with a response."
Ahhhh ... the ol' "not going to dignify it with a response" dodge. And notice Kossack BriVT quoted there.
And here's the ad (image link to YouTube page):
When you don't have as much money, you need to do something different. And that, I think, is a bit different.
I will take exception to one thing written in that Hill article, though. It says:
The ad, which voters can watch on YouTube, criticizes McHugh for concentrating on his appearance rather than on the needs of his constituents and the billions of dollars Johnson believes is being wasted in Iraq.
We never criticize him for concentrating on his appearance. The guy could look like Viggo Mortensen for all we care, as long as he produces for the American people. But he doesn't. From his perch on the Armed Services Committee, he allows our troops to go into battle with out-dated body armor. From his seat on the Intelligence Committee, he continues to spout "stay the course" nonsense while the NIE his committee first saw in April paints a picture of an Iraq strategy that is failing us.
But our opponent has more money than us and has a reputation for having quite the temper. So ... I think we can expect a concerted response. We're fighting (we have two press conferences this week condemning the torture bill), but we need your support. We need to place this ad in even more spots than we already have, and we need to be able to keep our head above water when McHugh tries to bury us with ads. We have a string of ads coming going after McHugh's rubber-stamping George Bush's destructive agenda ...
So, if you can, please contribute.
And if you are in my district, we're going on a complete tour of our entire district next week (it's the largest east of the Mississippi, btw). Check out our website for details and go to our volunteer page to sign up to volunteer.
I have some other news to share with all of you, but that'll have to wait for another diary ... it's potentially very big, though ...
McHugh thought he was going to glide to another term, with little real support but coasting on pure name ID and apathy. Well ... he's got another thing coming.