Art of the Possible

I rarely expect politicians to uphold campaign promises, but we’re sinking pretty low when they can’t even keep the promise through the campaign. During the Elmira debate both candidates Kuhl and Massa promised to run clean campaigns. Up until that point there had been some minor slinging but really they had stuck to the issues quite well. It could be said that they were both guilty of negative campaigning as both had stated the opponents position in a negative connotation. But most still consider an opponents voting record fair game. But recently Kuhl has turned to what can only be described as negative campaigning. I’m not talking about the “sniper ad” as its completely despicable and would be a more accurate portrayal of Kuhls positions than Massas but that ad was run by the RCC (or is it RCCC?) so while I think Kuhl could stop the ads if he really wanted, he did not approve them.  But there have been other ads including a radio ad which do include his approval which I can only see as negative, not to mention completely untrue.

Kuhl and the gang have used a common republican claim that the democrats want to raise your taxes. No one wants to raise taxes, at this point we may need to raise taxes, or at least reverse the massive tax reductions for the rich, in order to pay for all the wasteful spending of the last few years. If things had been managed appropriately then we would not have the budget deficit that we now have. If we had not given billions in tax giveaways to the rich and to huge corporations then we could have easily paid for the Katrina clean-up. Of course if republican shills had not been put in charge of a position that was left nearly impotent after being thrown into the largest government agency ever created (again by “small government” republicans) then that response might have even been effective. This administration, both the executive and the legislative branch have simply failed in every conceivable way. And now when the Democrats take back some of the power and try to restore order they will be called the bad guys for raising taxes. I for one will not stand for it.

            So to you Mr. Kuhl, you are a liar, you broke your promise to me and to this district. You said you would not run a negative campaign and within a month you have done just that. I knew you were a scoundrel a cheat and a liar before, but now you have lied directly to my face. You must have assumed that we are too stupid to remember what you told us, to dumb to actually check your voting record. You have lied to us for the last time, this district is not stupid, and we will not allow you to slap us in the face again. Have a good week, after that you will be a lame duck, not to say you weren’t before.