The Kerry camp’s strategy these days is to avoid debate on meaningful issues, and instead have surrogates take absurd potshots at Kerry’s primary challenger.
Here’s the latest from Politicker:
A local union has questioned Ed O’Reilly’s “working class guy” campaign persona, charging that O’Reilly has neglected to hire unionized workers.
In a letter to O’Reilly (D-Gloucester) earlier this week obtained by PolitickerMA.com on Friday, the local chapter of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, a branch of the AFL-CIO, sharply criticized O’Reilly for not hiring unionized painters to paint his campaign office.
“You have made efforts to reach out to organized labor and yet when you painted your campaign office in Amherst, you chose to hire a non-union painter,” the letter, which is dated Aug. 4, states. “This action can do little more than raise the question of whether or not you are sincere in your pronouncements to support the issues important to working class men and women in this country.”
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The letter, signed by John Laughlin, the union’s director of political and public relations, also calls for O’Reilly to release his tax returns for the last five years to the public.
First of all, for anyone who has seen O’Reilly’s Amherst HQ, it is surprising that he paid anyone for that paint job. Secondly, Mr Laughlin fails to acknowledge that O’Reilly has been a union member for many years, and Kerry presumably has not. Thirdly, Kerry has not released his tax returns since 2004.
Where’s the transparency there?
if you aren’t in a union? That should fly well.
Via Wikipedia:
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p>Just saying, it doesn’t sound very working class to me.
Mr Laughlin’s argument is two-fold:
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p>1. EOR does not support unions b/c he presumably hired non-unionized painters.
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p>2. EOR is does not support the working-class because hasn’t released his tax returns, and is therefore hiding the fact that he is very wealthy.
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p>#1 is pretty ridiculous, for the reason I pointed out earlier. Regarding #2, I think both candidates should release tax returns. They will show that both are far wealthier than the avg. Mass. resident (one much more than the other). I don’t think this by itself implies a lack of support for the working-class.
Is there any evidence, though, that the Kerry campaign made this charge?
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p>To take a recent example, some Obama supporters are a bit, shall we say, starry-eyed and also say dumb stuff. We don’t want to hold Obama accountable for everything his supporters say.
not a supporter. I’ve seen enough to know surrogates don’t stage attacks like this for the media to see unless it is with the consent or direction of the campaign.
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p>And this is page out of the old playbook. Remember before the Iowa caucuses in 2004, when the Kerry for President campaign had Jeanne Shaheen stage a phony press conference to call Wes Clark a Republican because he’d only registered as a Democrat 4 years ago??
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p>Yes, and if he’s calling for disclosure all around he should be calling on John Kerry to release his tax returns as well.
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p>Also, it says in the article that the Amherst HQ was closed.
…perhaps it was because the non-union painters also sucked? Ed, a word to the wise: in this life, you get what you pay for.
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p>As to the Kerry campaign avoiding debates, that’s simply not true. Kerry’s campaign manager responded to EOR’s letter asking for debates within 24 hours of receiving it, but Ed insists that he’ll deal only with Senator Kerry – note that in his emails, he explicitly states that he has not heard from Senator Kerry, and does not mention if Kerry’s campaign staff have been in touch.
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p>From what I understand, Ed has recently come around on that position, and as of now the ball is in his court, the Kerry campaign is waiting to hear from him. I talked about this with Kerry’s campiagn manager, Roger Lau, on a conference call the other night and again tonight on the way home from work with Cheri Rolfes, another campaign rep. If Ed truly wanted debates, he’d be working with representatives from Kerry’s campaign to schedule them – if he wants a talking point he can lie about, he’ll continue to do what he’s doing…
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p>(In the interest of full disclosure, I’m an unpaid volunteer working in my town to organize for Kerry – I voted for him at the state convention in Lowell, and that’s why I’m in close contact with the campaign.)
also eat dinner at my table. They painted my bedroom, my TV room, and next up – is the bathrooom and hallway. These nonunion painters are my husband, father and son. I, too, am a non-union painter…because the house I bought last year needs paint. And your point about non- union painters is what, exactly? Isn’t this a tired and shopworn boogeyman?
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p>As for the “debates” issue, one would think if Senator Kerry welcomed a debate, there would be at least one scheduled already. He does manage to schedule in his windsurfing pretty regularly. Enough of the bait and switch with the surrogates….let’s get the debate scheduled and stop the fancy footwork.
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p>Thank you, JohnT, for disclosing your affiliation. There’s a few here that want us to think that they’re just disinterested observers.
…about union vs non-union painters, aside from your observation. You said the paint job sucked, remember?
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p>As to the debates, Ed should have worked with Kerry’s campaign to get them scheduled – and he should still work with them, since they’re still not scheduled. As I said, the ball is in his court, according to the folks I’ve spoken with in the Kerry campaign.
sucked. I wouldn’t know; I’m not that close to the campaign. But the point I will make is that if non-union family painters painted the office – it’s hard to complain. I had the proverbial “Irish Mafia” movers (the ten brothers between my husband and I) move my belongings to a new domicile last year…and couldn’t find my silverware for four days. And I still haven’t found all my summer clothes…but I don’t get to complain because the price was right. Two cases of beer and five pizzas.
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p>As for the debates…please. This back and forth crap is just…crap. Even the press, who usually kisses the backside of incumbents, is calling out Senator Kerry on his lack of responsiveness on the debate question. So, the campaign can give you all the silly excuses they want – the fact remains that a debate still needs to be scheduled.
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p>Ah yes. That makes complete sense since it’s obviously Ed O’Reilly who’s ignoring John Kerry. Seriously, stop with the misleading posts. Even the media is calling Kerry out for ignoring the calls to debates.
He’s even getting called out on it by the media which I’ve posted about.
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p>Calls for debates and forums have been going on for over 2 months now. It’s plain obvious what the Kerry campaign is doing.
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p>Also, you state:
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p>You make it seem as though Kerry’s campaign manager was proposing debates and O’Reilly turned him down because it wasn’t Kerry himself. That’s just not true. Roger Lau brushed him off saying that Kerry was too busy in the Senate and guess what? Still, nothing has been scheduled.
…that ball is in Ed O’Reilly’s court.
and spoke with contact who does all the scheduling who has been in touch with Roger Lau and John Kerry. She tells me that she has spoken numerous with Mr. Lau and every time she’s just told that they’ll “get back to her”. Also, she spoke with O’Reilly today at 5pm and did not hear anything about the Kerry campaign agreeing to any debates or forums.
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p>If that’s true, let us know what dates and times Cheri Rolfes agreed to for Sen. Kerry.
I said that I was told that the last contact that occurred was from the Kerry camp to O’Reilly’s – I have no clue as to the nature of that exchange, and I made no assertion that Cheri had agreed to anything. Putting words in someone else’s mouth is a dishonest debating tactic – if you’d like to continue discussing things with me, you’ll need to stop doing that.
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p>From what I’ve been told, the ball is in Ed O’Reilly’s court – if we go to the primary without a debate, I’ll be very surprised. Will we get to 9/16 with 14, or 23 debates, like Ed wants? Be reasonable, the public would tune out after two of them.
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p>O’Reilly has had plenty of time to hash out a schedule, but his insistence on a face-to-face meeting with Senator Kerry has dragged the process out to where it is now – and given how he’s using it to his advantage, I have to wonder if it’s a deliberate tactic on his part.
you say that the ball is in Ed O’Reilly camp now. You’re trying to make it seem as though Ed O’Reilly is the hold up on scheduling these debates. That’s false and you know it. O’Reilly and constituents have been asking for debates and forums for over 2 months now. Kerry is stonewalling and is being call out by the media for it too.
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p>Also, I don’t see how the ball could be in O’Reilly camp unless they’re told what dates and times Kerry is willing to debate/go to forums. What other possibilities are there?
You’re kidding, right?
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p>Doesn’t your guy want somewhere between 14 and 23 debates, of various formats? Seems there’s a lot to talk about before we get to dates and times, at least IMHO. Again, I’m not speaking for the campaign here, I have no idea what discussions they’ve had. But the fact is that O’Reilly’s demands are unreasonable – way too many debates, and an insistence on talking directly with Kerry at a time when he was busy in the Senate, both of which look like stalling tactics to me. Couple that with his email last Saturday, which you posted here, where he complains that he still hasn’t heard from Kerry when he actually had heard from Kerry’s campaign manager. These are not the actions of someone who’s truly interested in getting a debate scheduled – but they certainly fill the bill if you want to publicly claim that your opponent won’t debate you…
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p>Link.
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p>And what’s the point of hearing from the campaign manager if all they’re saying is “we’ll get back to you”? Let me remind you once again that calls for debates have been going on for over 2 months.
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p>Oh, and thinking about how many debates/forums Kerry wants to have definitely takes over 2 months. Yes, that must be it exactly.
at a time that Kerry was very busy. If Ed had agreed to discuss schedules, formats, etc, with Roger, then this might not have dragged out to where it is. Again, these actions don’t look like the actions of someone who really wants to debate – and they sure do look like the actions of someone who wants to continue to make political hay out of an issue of his own invention.
You can try to come up with whatever excuses you’d like, but the fact of the matter is that it doesn’t take 2 and a half months to schedule a debate. It’s becoming so obvious that he’s even being called out by the media for it now.
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p>Here’s a new email from Ed O’Reilly from this morning:
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Setting aside the debate on the debates for a moment, isn’t this par for the course for someone running for statewide office? I’ve made no secret of my derision for Ed’s candidacy- I don’t consider him in any way qualified to be a US Senator- but he’s on the ballot. Is it really that outrageous to get a clearer picture of his finances?
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p>Now my guess is that Ed doesn’t want to release any financials because it will destroy his “working guy” narrative. But that’s me- I’m a Masshole.
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p>But I do think it’s important to know whether or not the guy who could be our Senator has financial ties to industries, corporations or individuals that could exert undue influence over him if he ever somehow got into office. Yes, Kerry has not released his tax returns in a few years but every year he files his financial disclosure which gives us all a pretty good idea about his financial relationships.
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p>I doubt the Gloucester School Committee required any sort of financial disclosures so Ed is a closed book. So tax returns may be the most realistic way to check into Ed’s finances.
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p>I may not take Ed seriously but he’s on the ballot trying to land a very serious job. Maybe it’s time to see if he can withstand some serious scrutiny.
but they’re obviously pushing a huge double standard here.
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p>John Kerry is obligated by law to release those financial statements. But he doesn’t need to release his tax returns b/c he doesn’t profess to be the candidate of the working man?
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p>and can we please put to rest the notion that you need a certain level of income to care about the needs of working people?
I see it more as the most realistic option for someone not in office. Not sure what else he could do to shed some light on his financial relationships.
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p>And I agree about there not being a income limit to care about working people. I’m referring more to Ed’s frequent claims to being “a worker just like you.” That’s a big part of Ed’s message, one he pushes frequently.
I don’t think it’ll hurt his working guy image. You have to have big bucks to run for Senate. O’Reilly’s put in 500K of his own money into the campaign. And Kerry has even way more money (not to mention his wife Ms. Heinz).
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p>But I don’t think it’s necessarily where you’re at, it’s where you came from. O’Reilly was a firefighter, a factory worker, lobsterman, and part of a union. The wealth he has was acquired relatively late. He knows what it is like to work for a living. And if you meet the guy, he exudes “working guy image”.
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p>Kerry on the other hand had a very privileged life. He didn’t have to work his way through college; he had all that payed for him.
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p>Also, I’m fine with people calling for their tax returns as long as they do it for both candidates. That guy who’s union endorsed Kerry was obviously biased only calling for one candidate’s returns.
I guess ‘relatively late’ is relative.
So he was a lawyer for 25 years. It takes time to build up wealth so say perhaps for 20 of them he was wealthy. Compare that to Kerry’s entire life of 65 years.
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p>That’s only a 325% difference. So yeah, I do think “relative” is the correct term to use.
He’s a drunk driving attorney and has made a ton of money from it. If you’re trying to represent him as some ‘man of the people’, he’s not, and listing some jobs he had 30 years ago doesn’t make him one.
I’ve run into Mr. O’Reilly at several events, and I was not impressed What has he done to support our presidential nominee? What has he done on anything, for that matter? He may say he’s for or against one issue or another, but I’ve seen no action to back up any of his claims.
All EOR does is bitch and moan about Sen. Kerry. Not good enough. How about listing his accomplishments over the past 25 years or so?
I’m guessing the list will be pretty short.
means a great deal. I give anyone a lot of credit for having to work their way through school. It builds characters, shows them the meaning of a dollar, and shows them what it is to be a part of the working class. Those past experiences will make the candidate more sympathetic to causes concerning the working classes because they will have been there themselves and can relate to it. John Kerry has never had to experience that.
from when he worked hauling crates at a grocery store between semesters at Yale. He may still carry it.
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p>I think one’s past means a great deal, too, so we agree on that. I was a waitress in college, does that make me qualified to run for Senate?
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p>I think volunteering to fight for one’s country means a lot. I think fighting corruption by investigating BCCI and Iran Contra means a lot. I think 25 years of progressive legislating means a lot. Sen. Kerry’s history is filled with accomplishments that speak to his Democratic values. What are Mr. O’Reilly’s?
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p>You didn’t answer my questions, Paul. Does Mr. O’Reilly support Barack Obama? Does he have any accomplishments in the past couple dozen years that back up his claim as a progressive? Because running on bashing your opponent is not a Democratic platform. It’s what the other guys do.
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p>Good night, and good luck coming up with something.
for the Senate. They’re in our Constitution. If you think they should be stricter, they by all means try and push for a constitutional amendment. O’Reilly got his votes from the people and from the party at the State Convention. He’s worked hard to get on the ballot and deserves a debate. You may not think he’s qualified, but that’s not up to you. That’s up to the people to decide (of which they would be making their decisions if Kerry would actually agree to a debate, but he’s stonewalling).
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p>Also, Kerry has done a lot of great things in the Senate. However, whether he’s a Massachusetts Democrat or not I think is definitely in question.
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p>-Kerry voted to authorize the war in Iraq.
-Kerry does not support marriage equality even though he has no constitutional or logical argument against it.
-Kerry does not support single payer health care.
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p>And I’m not sure where you’re getting these accusations that O’Reilly wouldn’t support Obama. He’s a democrat and a progressive one at that. I would most certainly think he would support Obama, but if you have that question you could definitely call his campaign or show up to one of the many events that O’Reilly will be attending.
I asked a question. I’ve not seen anything from him about supporting the Democratic nominee, so the question is legitimate.
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p>I also didn’t question Mr. O’Reilly’s right to be on the ballot, I’m questioning his ability to serve in the Senate.
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p>You’ve still not answered my question about Mr. O’Reilly’s accomplishments. He has to have done something in the past couple dozen years that backs up his claim as a progressive. Otherwise, he’s just blowing smoke.
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p>I’ll check back tomorrow and see if you’ve found anything.
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to question ones loyalty without any proof to the contrary. It’s rather like McCain and Co. trying to question Obama’s patriotism.
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p>To the contrary, there’s actual support that O’Reilly would support Obama since they are both Democrats and O’Reilly is a progressive. If you really have that concern, simply call his campaign and ask.
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p>Also, as to his ability to serve in the Senate that will be up to the people to decide. Seeing as how he did much better than expected at the State Convention and polls show a large number of Massachusetts citizens considering someone else for Senate I don’t think many share your condescending attitude.
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p>As to his political experience, he doesn’t have much. He spent 1 term on both city council and school committee. However, I don’t think political experience is the end all be all. Here in Massachusetts we elected Deval Patrick as governor who also did not have much political experience.
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p>Also, that’s not exactly the best argument to be making. The guy may have much better policy positions than John Kerry, but he’s probably just lying!! umm, okay.
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p>And if anyone’s motives should be in question it should be the guy who’s stonewalling debates and is getting called out by the media for it. So do you think John Kerry owes it to the people to have a debate and a few forums?
Actually, the reason I ask is that although I’ve seen Mr. O’Reilly post at multiple anti-Obama websites looking for support for himself, I’ve never read or heard anything of his support for the Dem nominee. And I never said anyone was lying, I’m just looking for some evidence that he’s done something to earn the progressive label you’ve stuck on him.
Is that too much to ask?
O’Reilly supports marriage equality.
John Kerry does not.
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p>O’Reilly supports single payer health care.
John Kerry does not.
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p>O’Reilly was opposed to the Iraq war from the start.
John Kerry voted to authorize that war.
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p>Progressive enough for you?
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p>And sure, O’Reilly is courting Hillary supporters. So? They are Massachusetts citizens just as much as anyone else. Just like he’s also courting anti-war supporters, marriage equality supporters, single payer health care supporters, etc. Hillary supporters are a constituency group and they certainly shouldn’t be left out simply for exercising their right to vote and voting for Hillary in the primary.
and has asked her supporters to do the same. Sen. Clinton doesn’t advocate voting for the Republican nominee. She’s a Democrat, and is a vocal supporter of the Democratic nominee.
Since you won’t answer my question about what Mr. O’Reilly has done, how about what he plans to do? How does he plan to pass a marriage equality law in the US Senate? The Dem health care plan is not single payer. Does Mr. O’Reilly support the Dem health care plan? Sen. Kerry has been one of the most vocal opponents of George Bush’s war. Does Mr. O’Reilly support Kerry/Feingold or the Dem position on withdrawal that’s resulted from it?
In other words, what would Mr. O’Reilly actually do to bring about the change he espouses? Does he have a plan to make these things happen, or is it just a wish list? You have to insert a certain amount of realism into the argument, Paul. Listing the same three talking points isn’t a platform.
Just as many constituents.
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p>So how about John Kerry actually agrees to a debate or forum and we can get these questions answered? Oh, that’s right, Kerry is completely ignoring peoples calls for debates and forums.
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p>Justice4All just made a nice post that I would like to quote:
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If you really take your own questions seriously, seems like you would be in the lead in calling for a debate! Debates are basic to democracy.
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p>My quick responses to your questions:
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p>1) How to pass a marriage equality law? By standing up for ME instead of against it. Unlike Kerry, who, when he was debating Bush, said,
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p>2) The Massachusetts Dem health care plan is single-payer. Platform
Ed O’Reilly supports the same single-payer approach as eight (out of ten) members of the MA Congressional delegation: John Conyers’ H.R. 676. Not Kerry.
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p>3) A plan starts with a goal and a willingness to do what’s needed to attain it. That’s what Ed O’Reilly has and John Kerry doesn’t. Kerry’s only plan is to be famous and popular. It surely fools some of the people some of the time….
and life.
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p>You may not look highly upon defense attorneys, but in this Country people are innocent until proven guilty.
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p>As to the “man of the people” O’Reilly has been doing a much better job of going around everywhere and talking with citizens. Kerry on the other hand has been stonewalling calls for debates and forums.