Schakowsky’s running on fear and lies
She can’t run on her record, so she’s running on fear and lies. On Wednesday, as our luncheon with Paul Ryan began, Jan Schakowsky sent an e-mail to her supporters, attacking me and Rep. Ryan. “Last month I told you about my Republican opponent, Joel Pollak,” she said. “He has spent the last year writing for Andrew Breibart’s [sic] website and working with Glenn Beck.” (Full text of the e-mail follows, below.)
For most of the past year, until leaving to devote full time to my campaign, I worked for Anne Bayefsky at the Hudson Institute. In my spare time, I wrote (for free) for several blogs, including American Thinker and Breitbart’s Big Government. Schakowsky doesn’t tell her donors what I wrote: I meticulously documented her corrupt attempts to bail out ShoreBank, and her husband’s role in writing the political strategy for ObamaCare.
She can’t contest a word of it, because it’s all true, and deeply embarrassing. So she tries to distort what I did, hoping her readers won’t actually read the articles themselves. On two occasions, Glenn Beck picked up facts from my articles at Big Government and used them to investigate further. Other journalists, too, used the leads I uncovered, particularly in the case of ShoreBank. I’m proud of exposing the facts she wants to hide.
Schakowsky also demonizes and distorts Paul Ryan’s “Roadmap for America’s Future.” She claims that it “calls for the dismantling of Medicare as we know it, transforming it into a privatized voucher system, that will leave seniors on their own at the mercy of private insurance companies.” These are lies–the same lies her husband floated in his Huffington Post column earlier this year. She’s obviously never even read the Roadmap.
My opponent’s slogan is “Fighting On Our Side.” She can’t run on her accomplishments, so she’s simply telling her voters: “He’s not one of us.” But the people of the 9th district are tired of a representative who devotes all of her energy to fighting with people, and none to solving the problems we are facing. That’s why we need a fresh start–an end to the politics of fear and distortion, and a return to open, honest debate about the issues.
***
Dear [redacted],
Last month I told you about my Republican opponent, Joel Pollak. He has spent the last year writing for Andrew Breibart’s website and working with Glenn Beck. Breibart is the right-wing publisher infamous for posting doctored videos of USDA employee Shirley Sherrod and gave birthers and other extremists a platform to attack President Obama.
But it gets worse.
Today Congressman Paul Ryan is coming to endorse and headline a fundraiser for Joel Pollak. We need to fight back. Ryan is author of a Republican plan that calls for the dismantling of Medicare as we know it, transforming it into a privatized voucher system, that will leave seniors on their own at the mercy of private insurance companies. The Ryan budget plan privatizes the social security system by diverting trust fund money into the stock market, and, it institutes deep tax cuts for the richest Americans. And today Ryan will be in Chicago to raise tens of thousands of dollars for my Republican opponent.
Can you help me fight back with a donation to build up our campaign efforts? Our efforts on the ground don’t just help our campaign, they help turn out Democratic voters who vote for progressive candidates up and down the ballot.
Let’s send a strong message to the Republican Party that their economic roadmap is voodoo economics at its worst, a pay off for the super wealthy at the expense of seniors, the poor and the middle class. Join me, let’s send a message by matching Pollak and Ryan’s fundraising draw and invest in protecting and electing strong progressive candidates here in Illinois.
Jan Schakowsky
