Meehan’s New Campaign Strategy, Same as the Old Strategy: Hide From Voters Behind Ads Funded by Special Interests
 
Springfield, PA –Today voters across the 7th Congressional District heard something familiar on the radio, a slick advertising commercial trying to convince them that a Republican candidate who they will never have a chance to talk to in an open, publicly advertised forum is the right choice to send to Congress.
 
Pat Meehan began running two radio commercials today, as recent polls show his campaign faltering, and he continues to withdraw from public events where he would have to answer directly to voters. Meehan has been able to pursue this strategy throughout the entire campaign because of the hundreds of thousands of dollars that special interest groups with anonymous donors like Americans for Jobs Security and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have poured into television advertising backing his candidacy.
 
The launch of Meehan’s advertising buy shows that he is refusing to change his strategy, even though two recent independent polls indicate that his campaign is faltering as voters reject this strategy. Two polls in the past week, one released today by The Hill, and one released last week by Monmouth University,  found that Bryan Lentz, the Democratic nominee for Congress in Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District, has closed a mid-summer gap and is running in a dead heat with his Republican opponent.
 
“Pat Meehan has thought all along he can buy this election without having to run a campaign, and running new commercials even as he refuses to meet with voters is just the latest evidence of that,” said Kevin McTigue, Lentz’s campaign managers. “That’s what’s turning voters off to his campaign, and why they are responding to the positive message for creating jobs that Bryan Lentz is bringing to them across the District.”
 
For months, Bryan Lentz has been reaching out to voters, holding a series of public town halls and visiting businesses throughout Delaware, Chester and Montgomery counties. He continues to campaign openly, even as his Republican opponent has scaled back on his public schedule, dropping out of a recent scheduled debate at the League of Women Voters and  a candidates forum at the Upper Merion Senior Center.

A former Airborne Ranger, criminal prosecutor and Iraq War veteran, Bryan Lentz currently serves in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from Delaware County. He was awarded both the Bronze Star for Service and the War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal for his military service. He lives in Swarthmore with his wife Jennifer and their son Thomas.

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