FreshStartPA continues to up its game this week, and is apparently following Gov. Corbett on his campaign trail.
After releasing its first negative Corbett ad on its YouTube channel on Tuesday, the PAC sent out a press release with a link to the organization’s second video: a minute and a half clip showing press conference attendees heckling the governor yesterday in Lehigh Valley.
In the video, Gov. Corbett smiles as he calls on a male attendee for the final question of the conference. The man stands up and starts with “Gov. Corbett – We love our teachers.” Corbett responds “Absolutely,” and all heads turn as a woman to the left states loudly, “Clearly you don’t.”
The man goes on to say that Lehigh Valley residents don’t want Corbett “messing with their retirement pensions.” Loud applause covers the tail end of the man’s comments, making it difficult to discern if he even asked a question at all.
As Corbett attempts to explain that his pension reform would apply only to new teachers, not those already working, another female voice, possibly belonging to the same woman, yells “You love Marcellus Shale more,” and the male who originally accused Corbett of attacking teachers responds “What makes you think we don’t love our new upcoming teachers?”
After a few seconds of the attendee and Corbett attempting to shout over each other, Corbett quickly ends the conference.
In the press release accompanying the video, FreshStartPA spokesman Mike Mikus focused on Corbett’s inability to respond to the man’s comments. “Tom Corbett cannot defend his billion dollar cuts to education or his failure to enact a reasonable severance tax that will help fund our schools,” he said. “… he can’t even answer the tough questions asked by Pennsylvanians.”
Regardless of the feelings of the conference attendees in the video, it’s clear that FreshStartPA intends to increase its media presence in the upcoming weeks, and will certainly be releasing more videos on its YouTube page, and press releases to direct attention to them.
This type of tactic, where opponents follow a candidate around looking for any mistake gained widespread popularity in 2006 after Virginia Senator George Allen’s career was ended by some racially insensitive comments aimed at a video chronicler.
The recently formed PAC, however, still has a long way to go, as the organization’s YouTube page currently has only four subscribers.
Update: “As the media knows all too well, Secretary Tom Wolf continues to dodge answering any questions that are asked of him,” stated Corbett-Cawley Communications Director Chris Pack. “We hope that Secretary Tom Wolf studies False Start PA’s video that shows a textbook manner in which to respond to a question – by simply answering it.”
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8 Responses
Pension Reform – Tom Ridge
And by local school districts not contributing enough, we mean Property Taxes. There must be a reality check on future government employees so our pension crisis isn’t borne by regular taxpayers (yes, like seniors) whose property taxes will have to be raised to fund this juggernaut. Requiring that everyone contributes to his own future isn’t anti-teacher; it’s simply a recognition that the current system is unsustainable. Period. And while it may make Governor Corbett unpopular for taking on the tough issues like this one head on, it doesn’t make the need for systemic pension reform any less real.
Jaster, the pension issue was caused by the state and school districts not contributing enough into the system for the past decade. So forgive me if I don’t think a defined contribution plan is going to pan out.
That is absolutely correct. People love to make him the bad guy when unions and other anti-pension reformists funnel millions into wolf’s campaign. I don’t see anyone question wolf’s morals. The bottom line is that teachers already receive of 2/3 of the education budget in the form of pension and only a measly 30% goes to the classroom and children. Also Corbett has increased the education budget for every year he has been in office while rendell cut it for every year. Corbett doesn’t want to cut pension reform, he wants to turn it into a contribution based system where people earn their pension on a contribution based system. And it’s the current pension system in place that is causing the drain on the economy that is forcing the government to not fund the education system fully.
It’s sickening to see these common misconceptions used as fuel to muddy Corbett’s reputation. Corbett opposed the tax on Marcellus Shale long before he received campaign contributions from these gas drilling companies. Of course these companies will funnel more money into his campaign, because he supports something that is in their better interest. But his motives behind not taxing these companies is to produce more jobs and increase the PA GDP. People just love to cry corrupt politician before they get the facts. They like to assume that the republican is the bad guy, but who can blame them? The liberal media likes spins it that way and they use it as their only source of information
Whether Tom Corbett actually cut the billion dollars from education, or failed to refund the billion to education from the billion dollar surplus he inherited from Ed Rendell’s 2010 budget – the end result is the same.
School districts in PA must pay over 53% of the tab. Districts in surrounding states pay 35%. For the fourth year in a row, 75% of our school districts are facing staff/program cuts.
Instead of funding education, Tom Corbett gave $2 billion more to corporate welfare in the form of tax roll backs. Said strategy failed to generate jobs in the Commonwealth, as PA dropped from 7th to 49th in job creation since 2011.
No wonder teachers hate him. Gonna be difficult to run a campaign, when you cannot have a public press conference.
Using fear tactics to scarce seniors on fixed incomes by tying public school pensions to their increased property taxes is unconscionable and immoral in addition to being an out and out bloody lie! He needs to get out of the pockets of his big corporate donors! Then there would be enough money to fund public ed and pensions!
And here’s the “money quote…”
“as the organization’s YouTube page currently has only four subscribers.”
Really? That added what to the story?