Dear Supporters
Dear Supporters, I have been at a loss for words the last week (and not just due to being sick) regarding Tuesday’s election. At about 7½%, the Republican primary turnout was almost as low as two years ago. Our margins reported at the polls were starkly different from the reactions of voters our campaign reached out to by phone and on the ground, but they reflected the ratio we were outspent.
The kind notes that have come my way remind me that no candidate can ask for a better group of supporters than we have had on this campaign. The level of dedication, hard work, and sacrifice—the amount of sheer heart you have shown—speaks volumes. Just a few examples are the petition carriers we had overcoming great physical challenges (in one case, chemotherapy) to collect pages of signatures; the many volunteers who awoke at the crack of dawn to come to train stations; and those who took time off from work to cover more territory going door to door when we were short-staffed. They helped on principle out of love for our country and with no expectation of a job or other form of self-enrichment.
What makes this election difficult for me is the realization of all the past or would-be supporters who were not with us for reasons no one should have to face in America. The freedom to speak, assemble, and support the candidate of one’s choice should be considered inviolate. A great price was paid to protect those freedoms. The many who would not exercise those rights out of fear made what became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Defeat was never inevitable, but fear and cynicism have a way of making the possible seem impossible. Perhaps that is the broader meaning of “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
I first ran for this seat five years ago—and that was over twenty years after I first got involved in politics as a conservative Republican. It was too much to expect county leaders of my own party ever to give me a chance rather than repeatedly doing all they could to undermine me, even down to absurdly telling people that I was a member of the opposing party. This reaction to what most would consider the service of stepping up to give back to the community many of you described as an eye-opener about the realities of local politics. I hoped that with enough hard work, others would be moved to stand with me openly. Those brave souls who did have my eternal gratitude, and I am honored to have known them. The amount of time and effort our supporters put into this and prior campaigns is staggering. You should know that I did my best.
In my own endeavors to give Nassau County Republicans and Conservatives a choice for Congress, I never lost what is most important: my soul. I want all of you who have supported me to know that whatever your efforts have done to increase my ability to reach people, I consider it a precious gift that I will continue to use for good. This is why we fight: We care about our community; we understand the meaning of citizenship; we uphold the Constitution that is so essential to protecting our freedom; and we love this country. This is still our country . . . if we the people are willing to reclaim it. Please do not lose heart. I believe President Reagan was right when he said the following words now etched on his grave: “I know in my heart that man is good. That what is right will always eventually triumph. And there’s purpose and worth to each and every life.”
I will always believe in our future. And I will always be Frank!
Thank you again for believing, and for putting your belief into action!
All the best,
Frank Scaturro
Blakeman’s Latest Anti-Scaturro Hit Job Recycles High-Tech Dirty Trick
Blakeman’s Latest Anti-Scaturro Hit Job Recycles High-Tech Dirty Trick
June 23, 2014 1:46 PM
On the eve of tomorrow’s GOP primary in New York’s Fourth Congressional District, Long Island Republicans are weighing a campaign mailing from candidateBruce Blakeman that attacks his rival Frank Scaturro — an attorney, long-time conservative activist, and friend of mine. In a desperate attempt to slam Scaturro, Blakeman recycles a dirty trick played by Scaturro’s 2012 GOP primary opponent. This hit piece also employs creative editing that is nothing less than stomach turning.
The circular — “Paid for by Blakeman 2014, Inc.,” as it reads, and mailed from Hicksville, New York — echoes the discredited meme that Scaturro is a liberal Republican because he worked for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee while it was chaired by the late Senator Arlen Specter (R., Pa.) “We don’t need another RINO (Republican in Name Only) in Washington!!” Blakeman’s flyer hollers.
While Specter was a liberal Republican who became a Democrat in April 2009, Scaturro has been endorsed by such screaming leftists as Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R., Okla.), Senator Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) (for whom I interned in college), Rep. Trent Franks (R., Ariz.), former governor Luis Fortuño (R., Puerto Rico), Joe “The Plumber” Wurzelbacher, and the Rockville Centre Tea Party Patriots. “We overwhelmingly support Frank Scaturro for Congress,” the RCTPP declared in aninvitation for a June 14 pro-Scaturro rally.
Scaturro argues that he broadly served all of the Judiciary Committee’s Republican members, including Coburn and Hatch, not Specter exclusively.
Regardless, it is highly hypocritical for Blakeman to hammer Scaturro for working under Specter when Blakeman and his company, Madison Strategies, Ltd., donated $4,400 to Specter over the years (“Blakeman asked for his money back after Specter became a Democrat, and Specter returned $1,100,” says Blakeman’s spokesman Matt Coleman.) I documented this in depth on The Corner yesterday.
Blakeman debases himself even further by running a doctored photo of Scaturro “with” Specter. Actually, this is the same “picture” that Scaturro’s previous primary opponent, Francis X. “Fran” Becker, deployed in a high-tech dirty trick in 2012.
The Becker campaign took a picture with Scaturro standing beside then-New York congressman Bob Turner, the conservative Republican who won a special election to replace former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D., N.Y.) after he resigned in disgrace for multifarious sexcapades. Team Becker Photoshopped this picture, removed Turner, inserted Specter, and then — in the coup de grace — erased Scaturro’s American flag pin.
I denounced this revolting photographic lie in 2012. So I was stunned to see that same fabricated photo in Blakeman’s mailing over the weekend.
But Blakeman did not stop there.
He attacked Scaturro for helping Specter write Never Give In, “the ultra-liberal senator’s autobiography!!” — as the Blakeman flier calls it.
“The deception here is twofold,” Scaturro tells me. “Their propaganda is all about deceiving people into thinking I worked with Specter after he became a Democrat, when the book is about a narrow slice of his service while chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee (2005-2006) going to bat for Republican judicial nominees. They keep saying I wrote Specter’s autobiography to suggest it covers the later time period.”
Scaturro adds: “The book is even more specifically about a man’s struggle with cancer while doing the aforementioned service to Republicans. These sleazy people excise that context to turn this into a political attack.”
It would be bad enough had Blakeman left it at that.
But it gets even worse.
It would be unseemly to criticize Scaturro for helping a cancer victim inspire others by discussing his fight against a deadly disease.
No problem! Just hide the evidence that Specter coped with cancer.
The original cover of Specter’s book clearly shows its subtitle: “Battling Cancer in the Senate.”
However, Blakeman flier shows the same book cover, but with the cancer-related subtitle conveniently erased. Also removed: a laudatory quote from actor Michael J. Fox, a highly sympathetic figure who bravely has grappled with Parkinson’s disease.
This is vulgar. Bruce Blakeman should hang his head in shame. More important, Long Island Republicans should reject him at the polls tomorrow.
Newsday - 4th C.D.: Nat Review writer calls attack on Scaturro hollow
Spin Cycle
4th C.D.: Nat. Review writer calls attack on Scaturro hollow
The National Review -- founded by the late William F. Buckley Jr. and still influential in conservative circles -- has one of its best-known writers, Deroy Murdock, weighing in this weekend on the 4th Congressional District's GOP primary on Long Island, defending Frank Scaturro from claims by rival Bruce Blakeman that he is not a conservative. The face-off is Tuesday.
The nub of the piece is that Blakeman is repeating the claim -- first shot down in the 2012 race -- that Scaturro is supposedly an "Arlen Specter liberal," citing the late former senator's switch to Democrat from Republican late in his career.
Scaturro was once on his staff.
Murdock, among other points, cites Blakeman's own past monetary contributions to Specter and slams what he sees as smears on his "Reaganite friend."
National Review Reports: GOP Candidate Smeared as an Arlen Specter Liberal . . . by an Arlen Specter Donor
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Republican Club Doors Closed to Republican Congressional Candidate
JUNE 21, 2014
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: PETER MATUZA 516.395.7723; [email protected]
Number of pages: 2 (two)
REPUBLICAN CLUB DOORS CLOSED TO REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE
Carle Place, NY – Despite being one of the two Republican candidates for Congress in New York’s Fourth District, Frank Scaturro has been barred from Republican club meetings throughout the district. His exclusion from the Garden City Club was reported in March. Since then, leaders of the six other clubs he tried to visit barred him. Frederick E. Parola, Republican Executive Leader of Wantagh, told a member of Scaturro’s campaign staff who asked by phone that Scaturro “is totally not welcome” at his club and added that “we’re going to kick his a--.” (In June 2012, Parola ejected Scaturro from a club meeting while handing out flyers which fraudulently identified Scaturro, a lifelong Republican, as a Democrat.) Scaturro’s hometown club, the Greater New Hyde Park Republican Club, of which Scaturro once served as president, has only two or three meetings per year and none during primary season. Its ranks have diminished as members have left in disgust at the spectacle of county GOP bosses lying to members of other clubs that Scaturro is a liberal and a Democrat and doing all they can to undermine someone from their hometown whom they know to be a principled conservative Republican. New Hyde Park-Stewart Manor leader Angela Powers responded to a phone request with “No,” and when asked for clarification on the issue, added, “I said no,” and hung up. East Meadow leader Tom McKevitt’s response to a request regarding his club’s meeting was “absolutely not.” The GOP Primary for Congress is being held on Tuesday, June 24.
Results were no different when Scaturro showed up at meetings of other clubs. Hempstead leader Bill Sammon took Scaturro
Read moreJoe “The Plumber” Wurzelbacher Endorses Frank Scaturro Through Robocall
JUNE 19, 2014
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: PETER MATUZA 516.395.7723; [email protected]
Number of pages: 1 (one)
JOE “THE PLUMBER” WURZELBACHER ENDORSES FRANK SCATURRO THROUGH ROBOCALL
Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, better known as “Joe the Plumber” has endorsed Frank Scaturro for Congress in New York's Congressional District #4.
Wurzelbacher attained fame as “Joe the Plumber” during a campaign stop by then Democratic Nominee Barack Obama in Ohio, during the 2008 election campaign. Wurzelbacher had asked Obama about his small business tax policy. Obama's response included the statement, "when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."Since Wurzelbacher expressed interest in buying a small plumbing company he immediately gained national fame and attention as “Joe the Plumber” and as a metaphor for middle-class Americans.
Wurxelbacher says on the robocall, “Hi, I'm Joe Wurzlebacher – you know me better as Joe the Plumber.On June 24th I urge you to vote for Frank Scatturo for Congress. Frank is for repealing Obamacare, lowering your taxes and getting rid of Common Core. His opponent Bruce Blakeman ran Nassau County into the ground with tax-hikes and corruption. He gives money to Democrats like Arlen Spector and Anthony Weiner - he's no Republican in my book. On June 24th - back a real conservative – Frank Scaturro – and tell them Joe the Plumber sent you. Thanks.”
https://soundcloud.com/bodybynance/jthepscaturrowavfile
Michael Barone on Frank Scaturro: Can an independent conservative beat the Nassau County Republican machine?
Opinion
Can an independent conservative beat the Nassau County Republican machine?
By Michael Barone | June 19, 2014 | 6:30 pm
Most Republican primary contests these days are characterized (however accurately or inaccurately) as fights between the Tea Party and the party Establishment. But in at least one case another characterization, more typical historically of Democratic than Republican primary contests, is more apt: a contest between a local party machine mainly interested in patronage jobs and an independent motivated by issues. That one case is the Republican primary contest next week in the 4th congressional district of New York, which includes most of the southern half of Nassau County, between machine-backed Bruce Blakeman and independent conservative Frank Scaturro. I wrote about Scaturro's race in 2012, when he lost the Republican primary to machine candidate Fran Becker by a 55 to 45 percent margin, but won the Conservative party nomination with 253 votes as a write-in, after the Republican machine had pressured the Conservatives to keep him off the ballot. Incumbent Democratic Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, first elected in 1996, is not running for re-election this year.
The Nassau Republican party machine, headed since 1983 by Joseph Mondello, is financed in large part by supposedly voluntary contributions from county and local government employees who owe their jobs to the organization. The machine has mostly controlled government in this relatively affluent suburban county, just east of New York City on Long Island, and has produced some of the most expensive local government anywhere in the nation. So much so that Democrat Thomas Suozzi was elected county executive in 2001 and 2005 and was only narrowly defeated by Republican Ed Mangano in 2009. The machine seems to be blocking Scaturro because it is less interested in capturing the seat than in making sure that someone who is not beholden to the organization gets in. In 2012 its candidate Fran Becker won only 32 percent of the vote to McCarthy's 62 percent; Scaturro received 6 percent as the Conservative candidate. Bruce Blakeman has not been electorally successful lately: He left office as presiding officer of the Nassau County legislature in 1999 and ran a losing race for mayor of New York City in 2009.
This year, as in 2012, Scaturro is being attacked for having worked for Sen. Arlen Specter when he was the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. But those were the years in which Specter was an effective Republican, pushing through the Supreme Court confirmations of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito. Scaturro had left Specter’s staff long before he left the Republican party in 2009, and he has a strong endorsement from Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn attesting to his conservative bona fides. There is reason to believe that Mondello would prefer to have Democrat Kathleen Rice win the House seat; she is currently county district attorney and her election would open up that office, with more patronage to dispense than a congressman, to possible Republican machine control.
It’s a mystery why relatively highly educated and affluent voters in Nassau County have supported the current Republican machine and it will be interesting to see if Frank Scaturro can overcome its opposition in the primary next Tuesday.
Four Short Days
In four short days - on Tuesday, June 24 - you’ll have the chance to vote for your next Republican and Conservative nominee in what could be the most transformative congressional election of our time. We already know that the seat left open by Carolyn McCarthy’s retirement makes this a once-in-a-generation opportunity. Now more than ever, I need your support!
Our campaign team has been working tirelessly to spread the word throughout our District about what each voter can do to ensure that we have the type of representation in Washington that we truly deserve: integrity, dedication to the Constitution, independence from party bosses, experience in national public service, an acute understanding of national security, fiscal responsibility, and a commitment to repealing and replacing Obamacare.
This is no time for more games in DC—especially when we’ve seen enough games at home! My opponent, whose true home is not in our District, but on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, has been a reflection of the very kind of politics we are trying to rid ourselves of. While my opponent was in charge of the county legislature, he continually voted for numerous tax increases and user fees, leaving
Read moreIs Senator Coburn a Liberal Too, Bruce?
Since Bruce Blakeman has apparently given up any pretense of running a campaign on the issues in favor of recycling an old fraud from 2012, it is only fitting that we remind the voters with the remarkable letter below of just how completely Blakeman disregards the truth. Specifically, Frank Scaturro’s work in Washington was entirely for Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and much of that consisted of defending conservative judicial nominees against liberal slander. What a sad irony that Frank would now be slandered himself by a dishonest liberal Republican who takes Frank’s service to conservatism and makes up out of thin air that Frank was in fact a liberal working to help Democrats. The conservatives who made it to the bench with Frank’s help are unable to speak out for him now since sitting judges cannot get involved in politics. But Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) can, and did. Frank’s work for the Judiciary Committee served all Republicans, including Coburn, and Coburn penned the letter below to set the record straight about Frank’s consistent commitment to conservative principles. When we consider that Blakeman supported liberal Democrats such as Eliot Spitzer, Anthony Weiner, and Kathleen Rice through his shadowy company—and when we consider that he personally donated thousands of dollars to Arlen Specter—it becomes clear that Blakeman’s dishonesty is matched only by his hypocrisy. With that in mind, I hope you will share Senator Coburn’s letter below with any family, friends, and neighbors seeking to be informed about the only principled conservative running in the Fourth Congressional District.
Read more
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