Attacks on Raja’s business background played a role in his defeats in 2011 and 2012. Any pundit worth their salt would anticipate them again in the state Senate special election. The ongoing ad war in Pittsburgh’s suburbs will determine if it’s possible for the Republican to shake the attacks that have dogged his political career.
Raja’s new 30 second ad, The Truth, attempts to counter the latest iteration from Democrat Pam Iovino. The spot accuses Iovino of lying, while painting her as too liberal.
“Liberal extremist Pam Iovino will say anything to get elected, even lie about Raja,” the spot begins with. “Here’s the truth.”
The ad states that he began his international company out of the spare bedroom of his apartment in the district and boasts about employing 500 people in Pittsburgh and across the nation. The ad also tries to stress paying his workers a fair wage and downplaying the role of global operations to focus on creating jobs in the Pittsburgh region.
“Raja creates jobs, Iovino will cost us jobs,” the ad states. “Vote Raja for state Senate.”
The Iovino campaign released an ad similar to ones from the Democrats who defeated Raja in his bids for Allegheny County Executive in 2011 and state Senate in 2012. Those attacks similarly painted Raja as an outsourcing-happy businessman who didn’t respect his employees. Fact-checkers mostly backed Democratic claims in 2011 and 2012; Raja’s response emphasizes that the activity in question represents a small fraction of his overall record.
Iovino’s campaign accuses him of trying to change the subject on a rotten record.
“The facts about Raja are that his company was fined more than $133,000 for failure to pay minimum wage and overtime,” said Iovino spokeswoman Abigail Gardner. “We understand he wants to change the narrative of the campaign away from lawsuits against employees, labor violations, and outsourcing jobs, but that is the track record.”
The special election for this seat is set for April 2.
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11 Responses
I have been googling “Who Is Raja” to try and find out what his experience besides a losing candidate for several positions, but all I can find is his political appointments by the successful candidates.
Just Sayin
Raja lost because he had the terrible consultants from Cold Spark in the past IMO
In spite of them he will rise or fall in this race based on Trump vs anti-Trump and that is it
All this advertising is just noise
“Fact-checkers mostly backed claims” by Rich Fitzgerald in 2011 and Matt Smith in 2012. So who is lying Iovino or Raja?
Raja is lying!
Raja keeps perpetuating that same lie!
Mr. Raja promised to run a positive campaign, but
broke that promise, airing his newest TV ad which
says Extremist, Socialist, Job Killing, Democrat Pam Iovino,
supports killing babies. He’s just another mud-slinging
win-at-any-cost Republican.
Politics PA is doing its best to help Raja. Does this “news article” with his ad prominently displayed constitute an in-kind campaign donation?
Raja has a problem and that is Pres. Trump. Without Pres. Trump the progressive sensations of the moment would not be as popular. Clearly there is a growing distrust of certain aspects of business and if you look at Pres Trump not wanting to release his taxes, and the Russian investigation among other issues–all of this has fueled the progressive movement which looks questioningly at the business world. Also too, this Raja situation reminds one of Scott Wagner’s struggles to explain his business decisions in the last political race.
Maybe Raja’s trouble is Raja. How does he fit the Trumpster mold of America First? He chose the wrong party. No GOP is going to vote for this “foreign” guy.
Sounds like the tagline should be:
“Raja creates worker compensation fines”
What do you know. You don’t even live in the district, clown.