Anonymous Advertisers Rush In to Rescue Meehan’s Campaign After Disastrous Debate Performance

Springfield, PA – An outside special interest group that refuses to reveal who its donors are even as it spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on television commercials in Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District rushed in to try and rescue Pat Meehan’s faltering campaign on Thursday after the Republican’s disastrous performance at a debate in front of a live audience two days earlier.

Americans for Job Security began airing a second attack ad against Bryan Lentz, the Democratic Candidate for Congress in Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District, on Thursday after television viewers statewide saw Meehan perform poorly against Lentz in their first debate in front of a live audience. Footage of the event, broadcast on PCN, showed Meehan, a one-time prosecutor, repeatedly unable to finish his thoughts or clearly make arguments throughout the entire 90-minute debate.

“Lentz was clearly the superior debater Tuesday, delivering concise answers, while Meehan, sweating heavily, often fell back on generalities and stumbled through his closing statement,” observed a reporter from the Philadelphia Daily News.

The new ad being aired raises additional questions about why corporations are using a front group like Americans for Job Security to anonymously spend nearly $300,000 to prop up Meehan’s faltering campaign. The group is one of a number of shadowy organizations that have been freed to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections by an unpopular Supreme Court decision from earlier this year. The decision allows the groups to spend unlimited amounts of money even though they are not required to disclose who their donors are.

“Relying on advertising paid for by anonymous special interests is the kind of thing you do when you know you can’t win over voters on the strength of your ideas,” said Kevin McTIgue, Bryan Lentz’s campaign manager. “At the same time that Pat Meehan’s campaign has chosen to hide behind nameless corporations, Bryan Lentz has been reaching out to voters across the District with his plans for giving businesses incentives to create good-paying jobs and bringing the deficit under control.”

Lentz has made saving and creating jobs the cornerstone of his campaign for Congress. He is the only candidate with a published plan to get our economy moving again and the only candidate who supports Wall Street reform and the creation of a consumer financial protection agency to ensure another collapse does not happen. Lentz has also pledged to end tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas while his opponent Pat Meehan has signed a pledge that has bound him to oppose legislation that has been introduced to end those tax breaks.