Frank Kratovil responds on the airwaves

Last week Andy Harris moved his Congressional campaign back to the airwaves with his first commercial and yesterday opponent Frank Kratovil responded in kind:

Of course, the Harris side didn’t waste any time coming up with a pithy reply, billing it as the Extreme Makeover: Kratovil Edition.

In his first television ad, Frank Kratovil has had an extreme makeover showing he will do or say anything to get elected.

“Either Kratovil has a short-term memory, or he is intentionally misleading the voters in the first district.” said Campaign Manager Chris Meekins.  “The reason Kratovil is trying to have an extreme makeover in his first ad is because he knows voters in the first district won’t embrace his radical liberal Washington agenda.”

Kratovil makes numerous misleading statements in his first campaign ad. See examples below:

Wasteful Spending

Claim: “decrease wasteful spending”

Fact: In an interview with WYPR, Kratovil stated he supports earmarks.  Earmarks lead to billions of dollars in wasteful spending like the “Bridge to Nowhere” in Alaska, and to corruption in government.  (Source: Transcript of Kratovil Interview on WYPR in Salisbury on 6/13/2008)

Illegal Immigration

Claim: “Crack down on illegal immigration”

Fact: At a debate in January, Kratovil stated he would have supported the “Amnesty” bill before Congress last year. Supporting Amnesty is not cracking down on illegal immigration. (Source: Star Democrat 1/13/2008

Energy

Claim: “Decrease our dependence on Middle East Oil”

Fact: By refusing to support off-shore drilling, the United States economy will not be able to stop buying oil from the Middle East. Expanding domestic oil production is necessary to decreasing our dependence on foreign oil.  (Source: Transcript of Kratovil Interview on WYPR in Salisbury on 6/13/2008)

Representation

Claim: “Independent. On Our Side”

Fact: Frank Kratovil has registered as a Democrat for Congress not as an independent. He has stated, “I want to be an ally of the Governor (Martin O’Malley) in Washington.” Being an ally does not mean you are independent, it means Kratovil wants to go to Washington to be on Martin O’Malley’s side, not ours.  (Source: Maryland State Board of Elections and the Star Democrat 6/5/2007)

The theme of Kratovil’s ad is “Protect”. My question is, protect us from what? Is Frank assuming that we need protection from someone or something, and that only he can provide it? That seems like a very nanny-like attitude to me.

As far as I can tell, the external threat that we need protection from the most is Islamofascism, yet Frank wants to pull our troops out of Iraq – one of the very places we’ve been engaging that threat. Moreover, by not wanting to drill for our own domestic supplies of oil, Kratovil is encouraging us to give some part of our gasoline dollar to those very same Islamofascists.

Perhaps it’s an internal threat that Frank is referring to. At the moment, what threatens us most in an economic sense is the high cost of energy (see above) with second place being the huge tax bite being taken out of our wallets by Frank’s buddy Martin O’Malley. Andy Harris has stood foursquare against those tax increases, but what my instinct guided by experience tells me is that Frank Kratovil would gleefully allow the Bush tax cuts to expire (in the name of balancing the budget, which wouldn’t happen) and thus proceed to take even more money out of the wallets of working Maryland families.

Maybe Frank is referring to protecting Chesapeake Bay, which is an admirable goal. But with so many restrictions already in place, we have no idea if all of the barriers to enjoying one’s private property and freedom are having any effect – impatient environmentalists seem to think that decades’ worth of what they consider damage can be reversed overnight. If anything, the rights of those who have property in the Chesapeake watershed are what need more protection.

Ultimately, the best person to protect one’s self is him- or herself. Part of that is embodied in our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. While I can’t say for sure that Frank Kratovil would be a gun-grabber, the fact that Andy Harris has the endorsements of both the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America leads me to believe he would be better at upholding this right, and less likely to be seduced by the anti-gun siren song of Nancy Pelosi and company.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.

2 thoughts on “Frank Kratovil responds on the airwaves”

  1. Claim: Frank Kratovil supports earmarks.
    Fact: Frank Kratovil supports responsible earmarks considering that’s where the shore gets a lot of it’s money for quality programs, not the nonsensical ones like Bridge to Nowhere…

    Nice try on spinning that

    Claim: Kratovil doesn’t support Off-shore drilling.
    Fact: Frank Kratovil supports offshore drilling once the issue of the current 68 million acres available for drilling is addressed.

    Nice try again…

    Claim: Kratovil isn’t going to crack down on Illegal Immigration.
    Fact: He has a record of doing so as States Attorney, why don’t you ask the state troopers he works with locking the ones that break our laws up. This is one of Franks biggest concerns, he has repeatedly said that the resources put into fighting Illegal immigration are enormous and we need to fix it so that we can address the problems of the actual citizens of this country/district.

    Is this a trend of spin?

    Claim: Frank Kratovil has claimed he is an independent.
    Fact: Frank Kratovil is merely making the case that he will be an independent thinker unlike your guy Harris who legislates with ideology rather than common sense.

    Boo, this post is filled with spin. If you want to really debate these issues, let’s have it out.

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