New York Governor Eliot Spitzer recently paid a visit to Elmira to publicly call upon my opponent Randy Kuhl to change his vote on SCHIP. By the Governor’s estimation, 10,000 children in NY-29 need SCHIP. Great blog coverage of these events is. But instead of changing his vote, Randy Kuhl has tried to change the subject to talk about the recent MoveOn ad about General Petraeus. Here is the actual quote, where he questions my character:
Now here's a veteran of some 24 years, I would have thought he would have stood up for some of his comrades in arms and really been very irritated with that attack on General Petraeus' credibility, but yet silence. Silence is deafening, it certainly shows the character of the individual.
Have we heard anything from my opponent in opposition to that, the answer is absolutely not. He's remained silent and why? It's obvious because he got George Soros (sic) Moveon.org money, they bought him off.
Kuhl is wrong on several counts. First, I have been quoted in the local papers saying that I thought the MoveOn ad was poorly worded and lost its message. This story appeared in two local papers. Second, I haven’t gotten any donations from George Soros or MoveOn. All of the almost $150,000, I raised last quarter came in mostly small amounts from individual donors.
Third, and this is most important, Randy Kuhl is the one who has been bought off. He has gotten $17,000 in campaign contributions from Big Tobacco, including $1,000 the week before the last vote. And he isn’t the only Republican being bought off by Big Tobacco. Of the 23 senators that voted against the bill, 21 have collected more than $1.8 million in campaign contributions from the tobacco industry during their time in office. This is just yet another example of how Republicans ignore the obvious will of their constituents to repay corporate donors.
By the way, thank you to everyone who donated to my campaign last quarter and those who have helped in other ways. Together we can make a difference.