Dahlkemper Campaign Ad Tries to Confuse Voters, Again

Congresswoman’s Campaign Apparently Forgetting Factcheck.org Called her Bailout Claim “Baloney”
 
Link: http://www.mikekellyforcongress.com/dahlkemper-campaign-ad-tries-to-confuse-voters-again/

Butler, PA – In another sign of desperation from a struggling campaign, the campaign for Congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper released a new television ad over the weekend trying to again mislead voters on her supposed opposition to Wall Street / bank bailouts.
 
On September 3rd, factcheck.org released a statement calling Congresswoman Dahlkemper’s (and four other Democrat congressional candidates) first television ad “Baloney” for falsely claiming she voted “against a bailout that helped Wall Street.”  Excerpt Below:
 
“Democratic Bailout Baloney… 

The final House vote on the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 took place on Oct. 3, 2008. The bill passed, 263-171. None of the five lawmakers who are running these ads is listed in the roll call vote. That’s because none of them had taken office yet – in fact, none of them would even be elected for another month.

So what are they talking about?

It’s fairly simple, and fairly misleading as well. All five of the candidates are claiming opposition to the $700 billion “bailout” because of a vote that occurred months after Congress approved, and President Bush signed, the TARP law.

Here’s what happened: As the law was structured, the treasury secretary (then Henry Paulson) had access to only $350 billion, half of the total package, at first. The second half would be available only if the administration went to Congress and asked for it. Treasury would get the money unless Congress said no. The first $350 billion of the TARP money was quickly spent.
By the time the Bush administration, at the request of President-elect Barack Obama, filed a request with the Senate for the rest of the money on Jan. 12, 2009, there were widespread complaints that too much of the first tranche had been used to bail out large institutions and not enough to help homeowners. The new funds could have been blocked had both houses of Congress voted to do so, but on Jan. 15, 2009, the Senate defeated a disapproval resolution, 52-42, effectively voting to release the funds. Treasury almost immediately announced it would use some of the money to shore up a deeply crippled Bank of America.

Where was the House in all this? Pretty much irrelevant. Eventually there was a similar vote in that body. Kilroy, Dahlkemper, Kratovil, Nye and Titus all voted for the disapproval resolution, and it passed, 270-155. But the vote came on Jan. 22, a week after the Senate’s vote (and two days after Obama was sworn in). Treasury already had the money.

In other words, these five — and everyone else who cast a yea or nay on the resolution — knew the vote on the unpopular program was purely symbolic…”

Then, in an apparent case of amnesia, the Dahlkemper campaign is again trying to confuse voters.
 
Partial transcript of new Dahlkemper Ad:
 
“Now, my opponents allies say I never voted on the bailout, well here’s the bill, I voted against it.”
 
“If we’ve said it once this campaign, we’ve said it fifty times, it appears the Dahlkemper campaign strategy is ‘If you can’t convince them, confuse them,'” said Brad Moore, spokesperson for Mike Kelly.  “Combine that with the fact that the Congresswoman’s campaign has applauded factcheck.org and then tries to refute them, it’s clear the Congresswoman’s campaign truly has very little record to run on that voters in the 3rd district want to hear.  After seeing this attempted deception again, it’s pretty apparent voters can’t believe a single word from the Dahlkemper campaign.”

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