SUNBURY — The campaigns for Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional District have grown nasty.
Although incumbent U.S. Rep. Chris Carney, D-10, Dimock, and his opponent, Republican Thomas Marino, publicly disavow negative advertising, both candidates are being attacked in radio, television and print ads.
On Friday, a Washington based anti-abortion group called AUL Action — the legislative action arm of Americans United For Life — began airing radio ads calling for the defeat of three Democratic incumbents: Reps. John Boccieri of Indiana, Baron Hill of Indiana, and Carney.
The ads are among the first to capitalize on a Supreme Court ruling this year that freed corporations to directly influence elections. The group criticizes Carney for voting for President Barack Obama’s health care law.
Carney on Friday was unavailable for comment, but Josh Drobnyk, a campaign spokesman, said: “It’s disappointing that another Washington, D.C., organization funded by special interests is using blatantly false attacks that have been routinely debunked by nonpartisan fact-checkers.”
“Congressman Carney,” Drobnyk said, “was singled out as a Whole Life Hero for his advocacy on this issue. This advertising buy is meager and is more intended to drum up free newspaper stories than anything else.”
In early March, another Washington D.C.-based group, the League of American Voters, ran ads in the Wilkes-Barre and Scranton TV market, also slamming Carney’s vote for Obama’s health care bill. The group — whose executive director, Bob Adams, was closely tied to President George W. Bush’s administration — is a national organization dedicated to “educating voters on their elected leaders’ support for the common sense values of free enterprise, family and national security.”
Its ad warned: “Congressman Carney, if you think you’ve got trouble now back home in your district, cast the deciding vote for Obamacare,” Adams said. “If you want to protect seniors from $500 billion in Medicare cuts, vote ‘No.’ If you want to stop job-killing tax increases on working families in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression, vote ‘No.’”
A Marino spokesman, Jason Fitzgerald, said Friday that “We have not bought any negative ads and will never campaign negatively. Issue ads are fine. Personal attacks are not.”
Marino, he said, will focus on the issues that are important to the people of the 10th District.
“We will not be afraid to point out that Chris Carney voted to cut $500 billion from Medicare and votes 91 percent of the time with Nancy Pelosi,” Fitzgerald said of the speaker of the U.S. House. “However, we will never attack him personally.”
But that’s not what Carney’s people say.
Carney blasted Marino early last week for suggesting that the incumbent should have signed legislation in July prohibiting taxpayer-funded abortions, even after learning the bill was formally introduced a day before Carney’s wife had breast cancer surgery.
In a conference call, Carney said: “Marino’s attacks are a sign of a campaign desperate for attention and a man ‘bereft of human decency,’ neither of which voters in the 10th Congressional District will stand for.
“It’s beyond desperation,” Carney said. “I don’t know why he would attack somebody for trying to come home to be with his spouse on such an occasion.”
Meanwhile, a mailer sent out by Carney for Congress alleges that Marino will end — in red letters — Social Security.
Scare tactics?
The gloves have come off early. And it’s not even Labor Day, the traditional start of campaigns.
-- E-mail comments to rdandes@dailyitem.com
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