Another Media Organization Calls Lentz Ad ‘Misleading’ 

Both PA2010.com and the Inquirer Call Out Lentz Campaign for Misleading Ad

DREXEL HILL, PA – Yesterday, in a factcheck item about Bryan Lentz’s desperate campaign ad, PA2010.com dissected the claims behind the ad only to come to the conclusion that the ad is misleading.
 
PA2010.com writes: “…upon further review, two suspect claims, on the issues of pay raises and tax cuts, force us to give Lentz’s first ad buy the score of MISLEADING.”
 
“It has become more obvious with each passing day just how panicked Bryan Lentz has become about his faltering campaign.  Conducting a misleading campaign that distorts the truth is exactly the kind of tactic that voters are rejecting, and clearly a sign of a very desperate candidate,” said Bryan Kendro, campaign manager for Pat Meehan.

On Lentz’s claim he refused the pay raise, PA2010.com writes, “But the ad steps out of bounds when it claims that Lentz ‘refused the pay raise.’ The campaign says this claim refers to automatic cost-of-living pay increases that Lentz has donated to charity. But in Pennsylvania’s political culture, ‘the pay raise’ refers to only one thing in the minds of most voters: the legislative pay hike that was passed in 2005, was quickly repealed that same year and became a lightning rod for voter outrage at Harrisburg. That pay hike was passed and repealed before Lentz took office in 2007, so he was in no position to ‘refuse’ it.”

On the issue of tax cuts, Lentz also gets called out for misleading the public about Pat Meehan’s position on tax cuts.  “…at the end of the ad, Lentz errs by saying himself that ‘unlike my opponent, I don’t think we should add to the deficit so some millionaire can keep his tax cut while the rest of us get nothing.’  Meehan hasn’t called for ‘the rest of us’ to ‘get nothing.’ Like most Republicans, he wants all the tax cuts to be extended, meaning that both wealthy Americans and middle-class Americans would continue to pay the lower tax rates that began in the Bush years and have continued under the Obama administration.”
 
And just last week The Philadelphia Inquirer also called the ad misleading, “The second ad is somewhat misleading as it implies that Meehan supports tax cuts for the wealthy at the expense of the middle class. Meehan supports tax cuts for both.” (Joelle Farrell, “Suburban congressional race heats up with ad buy,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, September 14, 2010)