Response to Joseph Lieberman’s television attack ads by Ned Lamont

http://nedlamont.com/news/280/response-to-joseph-liebermans-television-attack-ads

Lamont Campaign Response to Joseph Lieberman’s television attack ads

For immediate release: June 6, 2006
For more information, conctact: Liz Dupont-Diehl, Communications Director, (860) 989-7893

On Memorial Day weekend, 2006, Senator Joseph Lieberman began airing a 30-second attack spot listing a series of Ned Lamont’s votes when he served as a local official in the early 1990s.

Senator Lieberman is trying to distract attention from the issues and from his own actions – voting with asbestos companies and against the wishes of many victims and their families; in favor of the Bush/Cheney Energy bill; and for repeated and off-budget appropriations for the war in Iraq.

In light of his own statements, this ad by Senator Lieberman shows he is willing to go against his own professed standards and values. Why has he posted his other TV ads on his web site – but not this one, more than a week later? Is he ashamed of this baseless attack?

On page 88 of “In Praise of Public Life” Senator Lieberman attacked Lowell Weicker for using old votes in his ads:
“At that point, Weicker stopped ignoring me. He hit back with a barrage of attack commercials, portraying me the same way Larry DeNardis had back in 1980 – as a big-taxing big spender.
One of those ads was technically accurate but didn’t mention that the tax votes cited were cast seventeen years earlier, in 1971.”
Joseph Lieberman’s attacks against Ned are not even “technically accurate.” They take votes to reduce increases and present them as cuts.

Simply not true.

Here is a point by point rebuttal of the ad:

Announcer: “Meet Ned Lamont. He’s a Greenwich millionaire.”

On page 76 in Senator Lieberman’s book “Praise of Public Life” he states, “There is nothing wrong with going after your opponent’s voting record or other evidence of negligence in his public life, but digging into his bank account, his phone records, his medical history, his sexual life and literally his garbage when these things have nothing to with the performance of public duties – past, present or future – is wrong.”

Senator—it is still wrong.

“He says he wants to invest in better schools and quality healthcare. But when Lamont had the chance, he voted to cut education.”

Here’s what Lieberman didn’t tell you:

Ned Lamont didn’t cut school funding, he increased it – by 4.2%, And he added 17 new teachers. That’s the truth that Joe Lieberman doesn’t want you to know.

The vote Lieberman references was a reduction to a budget PROPOSAL. Ned proposed a $150,000 reduction to the proposed increase of $11,549,514 – and Ned’s reduction was targeted to a line that covered administration, not instruction.

In that time period, school budget increased by 4.2%, and the high school maintained its support staff at the highest level in Fairfield County.

“He actually tried to make town employees pay more for their healthcare.”

What Lieberman didn’t tell you:

The resolution applied to a small portion of town employees in upper management. It said that management should be required to accept any increase in out-of-pocket expenses that are agreed to at the bargaining table with the town’s unionized employees. The 11-0 vote shows that this was not a controversial issue at all.

What was Senator Lieberman doing in 1994? That was the year that he helped to kill national health care reform, which would have provided much needed relief to Connecticut’s municipalities, employers, and working families.

“He was the only democrat to vote to cut funding for the health department.”

SNIP

I would just love to see him beat Lieberman, and I am a ex-Rhode Islander.