Fitzpatrick Goes Negative (Watch Video)

In what looks like a “Best of GOP attacks, 2010 edition” highlight reel, Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (R-Bucks) this week unveiled his first negative television spot against challenger Kathy Boockvar. The ad centers on the Democrat’s support for Obamacare.

“Boockvar supports government-run health care, which cuts Medicare by over 700 billion dollars and outsources jobs. Lead by Nancy Pelosi and supported by Boockvar, this plan could destroy 800,000 American jobs,” blasts a female announcer.

Mike Fitzpatrick, on the other hand, “is always putting people before politics. It’s why he’s protecting Medicare and fighting to create jobs.”

The 8th congressional district is Democrats’ top pickup opportunity in Pa. this year. Fitzpatrick, a former Bucks County Commissioner, is playing defense against Boockvar, a local attorney.

Boockvar has attacked Fitzpatrick for weeks over his vote to defund Planned Parenthood and his support of two GOP budgets that she says would end Medicare as we know it.

“There’s exactly one person in this race who has actually voted to cut billions from Medicare and protect tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas, and that’s Congressman Fitzpatrick,” Boockvar’s Campaign Manager Jon Blair said of the ad. “Mike Fitzpatrick’s attempt to pin his own voting record on Kathy Boockvar is a desperate play intended to distract voters from his verifiable record of saying one thing here at home and doing exactly the opposite in Washington.”

Both candidates and their supporters are endeavoring to paint the other as an extremist in this moderate suburban district.

For example, when Fitzpatrick said at a recent Tea Party meeting this:

“And one of the principles is that we need to support people who have a history and know what it is like to sign the front of a paycheck, not the back of a paycheck, the front of a paycheck also includes you took a risk and you build a business on your own without the federal government standing next to you as you’re signing a personal guarantee it’s just you and your wife and your banker, you know that’s it. Taking that kind of a risk.”

Democrats seized on the remark, calling it Fitzpatrick’s “47 percent moment” – a reference to Mitt Romney’s well-publicized foible.

The Pa. Democratic Party, the AFL-CIO, Pa. Working Families, and the CREDO super PAC all issued statements trying to make the connection.

“People who teach your children, stock your shelves and protect your streets receive paychecks and they deserve your respect Congressman,” said Mary Dunne, President of the Bucks County Central Labor Council, in an AFL-CIO press release. “Just because you’re speaking at a private fundraiser, to a tea party crowd, doesn’t mean you can just write off the people who work for a living.”

Fitzpatrick later said that he mispoke, meaning to say “not just the back of a paycheck”.

8 Responses

  1. “If at first you don’t succeed….” appears to be the mantra of the Progressives. Pennsylvanians, including those in Bucks County, have confirmed their distaste for Pelosi-Axelrod-Jarrett-Soros types via the defeat (2x) of their hand-picked candidate, Patrick Murphy. This latest attempt to impose a Progressive on Bucks County voters via Boockvar will meet the same fate as that of Patrick Murphy.

  2. @ Alex

    The Ryan Budget only affects [potentially] future Medicare recipients [i.e., those less than 55 y.o.], whereas ObamaCare affects [already] current Medicare recipients.

    It would be helpful were you to recognize this rather-simple fact.

    *

    You claim the Ryan Budget “shifting over 6,000 dollars in extra costs to current seniors” without providing a credible reference, particularly because the Ryan Budget doesn’t affect current recipients.

    *

    It is untrue that the “Ryan budget ALSO includes those…700 billion in cuts” because, as he has carefully explained, he bases his analysis on current reality…and THEN alters it to attain solvency.

    *

    It is also untrue that “now he says that only men can start businesses,” and such a misrepresentation only challenges your credibility.

    *

    Finally, it is manifestly untrue that Mike said “the government should only help people who ‘sign the fronts of checks and not those who sign the back of them’ ” and, again, your partisanship is showing when you can’t document your assertions.

  3. Hey Alex,
    At least Fitzpatrick Doesn’t profit off of Cop Killers like the law firm Kookvar and Yeager did.

  4. @Sklaroff. That’s a load of B.S. Fitzpatrick voted twice for the Ryan Budget. Which turns Medicare into a voucher system, shifting over 6,000 dollars in extra costs to current seniors, thus “destroying Medicare as we know it” And those 700 billion in cuts? Yea, the Ryan budget ALSO includes those. So Fitzpatrick is slamming Boockvar for something he’s voted for multiple times. And now he says that only men can start businesses, and the government should only help people who “sign the fronts of checks and not those who sign the back of them” What a tool

  5. An effective leader acquires support from myriad individuals/groups and, thus, attempting to smear Mike by suggesting–somehow–that his being endorsed by members of the TEA [Taxed Enough Already] Party Movement…reflects the prejudices of the author, and not any problem with Mike.

    It is the D-Party that has ALREADY “changed Medicare as we know it” by gutting it fiscally; thus, Boockvar’s Campaign Manager Jon Blair should be asked to document his claim that Mike “has actually voted to cut billions from Medicare.”

    Finally, the thrust of this ad is doubly-accurate; the D’s have championed ObamaCare and billions [and accompanying jobs] were siphoned to foreigners via Obama’s D-controlled Congress [2009-2010].

  6. The only job Fitzpatrick is trying to save is his. His lie about the 700 dollar Medicare cut is well refuted.
    When he agreed to redefine rape did he any thought to his daughters?
    The people who sign the front of Fitzpatricks paycheck deserve respect and have not gotten it.
    He is now trying to back pedal his words, well he cant, he said them and they are his to own. He was sucking up to the local tea party the head of which is a paid lobbyist.
    He no longer can deny his association with them. He is one of them.

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