Grimm Targeted In Ads Blaming Republicans For Sequester Mess, While His Challenger Pledges To Avoid Personal Politics
As the sequester rolls on unheeded, slashing everything from defense spending to Superstorm Sandy aid, a partisan media war is unfurling across your TVs and the internet. Sure, there’s nothing new about that, but the latest ad, unleashed by Democrats, targets GOP Congressman Michael Grimm as being a major cause of the sequester mess, according to a report by the New York Daily News.
As we reported last January, Democratic strategists are targeting Grimm as being one of the more vulnerable Republican candidates seeking reelection. This new ad, which paints Grimm as a Tea Party member and accuses him of “putting millionaires ahead of the middle class,” is one of the earliest efforts by the Democratic Party to take control of his district.
The effort by the Democrats comes as sweet news to Councilman Domenic Recchia, who is seeking to unseat Grimm in the upcoming 2014 elections. In a report by Politicker, Recchia charted his plan to win, an effort that won’t go after Grimm’s various corruption charges.
Instead, Recchia wants to focus on the issues, including Grimm’s response to Hurricane Sandy:
“In my days in working with Superstorm Sandy … I had to worry about my own district, worry about what was going on in the city. Then the [Council] Speaker called me, said, ‘We have to get moving. We need money. Staten Island, Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan. We need to fund hospitals, we’re out schools.’ We had to move money around. So I’d be working the district, meeting with her at night, going over funding,” the councilman said. “I just came to realize, ‘How are we going to make up this much money?’ We’re relying on the federal government. Then with the Republican Congress, they cancelled the vote. Then John Boehner started to use the [Republicans] of New York so he can get his support to be the speaker. That was unacceptable. I thought that was horrible that somebody would do that. To hear Michael Grimm say, ‘I’m not going to support him.’ Which is great, I’m glad. But then he goes and supports him. That’s unacceptable.”
While Recchia expressed desire to run an issues-based campaign, he didn’t rule out the possibility of all-out mudslinging as election day nears:
“The campaign is a year and a half away, alright?” Mr. Recchia said when we asked if he might change his tune. “I’m sure many issues are going to come up. I really want to keep this about what I have done, my track record. I have a good track record on serving communities, building consensus, working with both sides of the aisle. That’s what we need. I want to do what’s necessary, not what’s easy. That’s why I’m running for Congress.”