#NY23: Tom Reed hits Mitrano campaign for staffer anti-cop, anti-capitalist social media post
“F— Tom Reed” “F— Cops” “F— Capitalism” “F-Trump”
It’s hard to know if the contest between incumbent Republican Tom Reed and Democrat challenger Tracy Mitrano in NY-23 is competitive.
Cook and a couple of other analysts have moved the race from Safe/Solid Republican to Likely Republican. No one has moved it to toss up or even Lean Republican.
There is no public polling in the district. Siena, which has polled several upstate NY districts, is not bothering to poll in NY-23. None of the national Democrat groups has gotten involved, which may be a sign that they don’t see much likelihood of an upset.
Mitrano released limited poll results recently from a progressive online polling group purporting to show Reed up only two points. That would be astounding, if true. Yet neither the Mitrano campaign nor the pollster would release the full results to me, despite my request. In all likelihood, this is the type of tactic a desperate campaign uses to try to drum up media coverage, excitement, and fundraising. The Mitrano campaign played games with earlier polling by the same pollster over the summer. There’s reason to be suspicious this time as well:
Why not release the internals of the poll considering you and the pollster have different top line numbers? #ny23 pic.twitter.com/g1GescsJ2v
— Legal Insurrection (@LegInsurrection) October 26, 2018
I guess we’ll find out on Tuesday whether the poll was legitimate or just political flim-flam.
Meanwhile, the air wars have heated up, with both sides running attack ads, and complaining about the attack ads run by their opponents.
Against this backdrop, the Reed campaign today issued a blast-email Press Release accusing a Mitrano staffer of posting an anti-cop, anti-capitalist social media image.
RELEASE: Top Advisor and a Spokesperson for Tracy Mitrano’s Campaign Reveals Anti-Police and Anti-American Agenda
* * *
Top Advisor and a Spokesperson for Tracy Mitrano’s Campaign
Reveals Anti-Police and Anti-American AgendaTracy Mitrano’s extreme agenda was exposed overnight by a spokesperson and paid member of her campaign team on Instagram.
The post, which is too vulgar to share uncensored but can be seen here, degrades the police, capitalism, Tom Reed and President Trump.
“It’s stunning that a paid member of Tracy Mitrano’s staff and a spokesperson for her campaign would make such hateful and offensive statements,” said Abbey Daugherty, Communications Director for Tom Reed for Congress. “It shows what truly motivates Tracy Mitrano and her team: a hatred of our law enforcement community and our capitalist system. This should further illustrate to voters why they simply cannot trust Tracy Mitrano.”
“We need a representative who supports law enforcement, law and order, and the belief that you are innocent until proven guilty. And that person is Tom Reed,” said Sandy King, retired New York State Trooper.
“Tom represents all of us with honor and dignity. As a retired career law enforcement officer, US Army veteran and father, I know that we need Tom Reed,” said Mike Healy, Chair of the Allegany County Republican Committee.
The link in the press release goes to the Extreme Ithaca Liberal website run by Reed’s campaign, and this Instagram image:
The Reed campaign provided the following information as to the identity of the Mitrano staffer: “In response to your inquiry, this post was brought to our attention and came from an Instagram account belonging to Hadiyah Chowdhury, a Regional Field Organizer for Tracy Mitrano’s campaign working out of her Corning office.”
The Instagram account in question is set to private now, but the Instagram account name does identify the person as Chowdhury, whose Linked-In account identifies her as a “Regional Field Organizer” for the Mitrano campaign starting August 2018. [It appears that this is the same person who, as a student at Cornell, was a leading anti-Israel campus activist.]
An email to Mitrano’s Campaign Manager and Communications Director seeking comment on the Reed press release has not been responded to as of this writing. Chowdhury did not respond to a Facebook message seeking comment.
Will this be a big issue in these final days?
It plays into the “Extreme Ithaca Liberal” campaign theme Reed has been using against Mitrano.
It also reinforces Reed’s claim that Mitrano is not the moderate she purports to be, and is hiding a more leftist agenda.
If the race is as close as Mitrano claims, it could help to motivate Reed’s base of support among law enforcement and non-Ithaca voters.
And voter turnout could be the key if this is in fact a close race.
UPDATE:
Chowdhury has resigned according to the Olean Times Herald:
A paid staff member of the Tracy Mitrano congressional campaign team resigned Saturday after the Tom Reed campaign disclosed a vulgar posting on her Instagram account….
“It’s stunning that a paid member of Tracy Mitrano’s staff and a spokesperson for her campaign would make such hateful and offensive statements,” said Abbey Daugherty, communications director for Tom Reed for Congress. “It shows what truly motivates Tracy Mitrano and her team: a hatred of our law enforcement community and our capitalist system.”
Mitrano released a statement late Saturday: “One of my campaign field workers put a post on social media last night that was not in keeping with the standards to which I have run my campaign for the last 16 months,” Mitrano said.
“The staffer does not speak for the campaign and the statements made in the post do not in any way represent me or my values. I have long talked about the need for respect and decency in politics. As a result, the staffer has turned in her resignation and I have accepted it.”
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Comments
Early voting results from Texas out up at Free Republic … Democrats getting their skulls crushed
You’re quoting… Free Republic?… Seriously?
Legal Insurrection is still relevant. That’s why I still read this blog. Don’t go full Free Republic.
Besides that, early voting doesn’t necessarily mean anything and we’ve all seen independents break hard for Democrats before, they did for Al Gore, etc etc. We shall see.
“You’re quoting Free Republic?”
Dan Rather could not be reached for comment.
How about instead of arguing from authority, you actually address the facts presented by Free Republic?
Or put your money where your mouth is. On Wednesday, if FR is right about Texas, you’ll donate $100 to Legal Innsurrection?
?
My attitude about Free Republic is based on long experience from a long time ago. And no, my money will stay put. Should results be a pleasant surprise, I will greet them pleasantly. That’s all there is to it.
In other words you just want to discredit the message by impinging the messenger.
Sounds like a very Leftist/#MeToo tactic.
You do you
A message delivered by an unreliable messenger is useless, and it’s foolish to rely on it, even if by some fluke it later turns out to have been true. Would you bother reporting a story from National Enquirer, just because it happened to have got the John Edwards story right?
Well, I’m really surprised that anyone is releasing the ballot tallies from early voting before Tuesday. Seems like that would be illegal, wouldn’t you agree? We all know about the potential accuracy of exit polling (assuming that is what the matter under discussion actually is). Sometimes it is right, sometimes people tell those asking what they think they want to hear.
So articulate.
She should be locked in the same cage as alec baldwin and maxine waters.
is hard for me to understand how a post of that sort is not even looked upon as offensive by what passes for moderators on social media–how is something like that not recognized as offensive?–as ” hate speech? “–as obscene?–am not a prude by any stretch, but find it sickening not only that a post like that is permitted but that it is somehow considered representative of ANYONE other than some self-absorbed, ignorant bigot aided and abetted by the media–have our(or their)standards really sunk that low?–not frightening really, more akin to disgusting–can only say that people of that ilk will NEVER hold the reigns of power while am alive to do anything about it
Do these idiots not understand that “No Capitalism” means “No iPhone?” Or do they thing devices like that magically appear because a collective gets together and decides to make them?
I will never forget Facebook allowing people to conspire to murder George Zimmerman.
Those of us living and voting in the 23rd District want to thank Prof. J. for keeping Tom Reed in the news. Last election for Tom Reed was more contentious, but the stakes are now higher than ever to keep him in D.C. . At the state level, having Tom Reed in Washington makes Gov. Cuomo (as he campaigns on the back of anti-Trump) for his own re-election on the way to being a 2020 want-to-be, causes him to see RED. And He despises that color.
Tom Reed is a terrific guy. He is not afraid to hold town meetings in very hostile locations. I have personally attended such a meeting. Tom was respectful and articulate, and he was clearly trying to find common ground and make friends – without compromising his beliefs.
I have also had some interactions with Tracey Mitrano. I have never seen her behave as anything other than a decent human being. Her campaign platform contains standard leftist positions, but I haven’t seen her adopt leftist smear tactics.
I can’t blame her for the juvenile behavior of her campaign staff member.
However, I would never vote for Tracey Mitrano. She is on the wrong side of the two issues which I consider most important: Abortion rights and education – both contributors to our child-sacrifice culture.
“I can’t blame her for the juvenile behavior of her campaign staff member.”
I can. She wants to become a member of Congress and make decisions and participate in votes that will effect huge numbers of people, if not virtually everyone on earth. And she is unable to screen her hired staff to keep out people who will make foolish decisions, or she is at least unable to set down rules for her staff and make certain they obey them.
Part of this whole campaign process is to see how the candidate conducts themselves and runs their campaign. Its a preview of things to come. She is the captain of her ship: it makes little difference who has their hands on the helm, the captain is responsible.
A few weeks ago Corning’s newspaper, The Leader, posted an article in which Mitrano was quoted as being not very liberal but “more moderate.” I left a comment saying that she can call herself moderate if she wants, but DC doesn’t need another Dem, that I was voting for Reed. The Leader never published my comment.