According to an article by James Wensits in the South Bend Tribune, Chris Chocola from Indiana’s Second District is the target of a national ad campaign that accuses he and a handful of other Representatives of being in the pocket of the oil companies.
Specifically, the Tribune characterizes the ads as follows:
“Instead of protecting us, Congressman Chocola has been caught red-handed, protecting oil company profits while we pay more at the pump,” the ad proclaims while showing Chocola with a raised hand that is stained red.
According to the commercials, Chocola has accepted more than $80,000 from various energy and natural resources PACs since he began running for Congress “while voting against bills that would have penalized those companies for price gouging.”
Chocola has called on Democratic opponents Joe Donnelly and Steve Francis to side with him in opposing the ads. He has not made a similar request of his primary opponent Tony Zirkle.
Donnelly responded by saying “I find it hypocritical that Chris Chocola is now complaining about special and outside interests money after receiving millions of dollars in this same type of money in past years in his campaigns.”
Steve Francis responded by saying:
“this type of ad is legal under lax campaign finance laws” and asked Chocola and other candidates “to commit to meaningful campaign finance reform” and agree to debate the issue.
“I agree that the campaign finance system is broken and needs reform,” Francis said.
“Rep. Chocola wants it both ways: to accept money from outside the district from special interests and to cherry-pick which ads and which outside funding sources are fine and which are not. I do not support that approach.”
Upon reflection, I think it’s incumbent upon Mr. Chocola to specify which assertions in the ads are factually incorrect and ask his opponents to join him in disapproving of those assertions. If it’s simply a matter of the ads making factually correct assertions but putting them in a context which Chocola finds unflattering, I think it’s up to him, and him alone, to provide the context. Certainly he has the resources since President Bush generated a fat wad of campaign cash for Rep. Chocola.
But, frankly, I had not considered Chocola’s relationship to Big Oil as a potential issue. I’ve been more focused on Chocola’s ties to the Tom DeLay/Duke Cunningham/Jack Abramoff corruption scandals that have been rocking the Republicans in Congress, his support for President Bush’s social security privatization scheme, and the declining support in his district generally for the quagmire in Iraq.
I agree Doug — while the fuel price issue is bigger than Mr. Chocola’s votes, he hasn’t denied that he voted against an anti-price gouging bill. Here’s a link to the MoveOn.org page that states the facts they assert support the ads:
Red-Handed Energy – Chocola, IN(2)
Ah, election time. If I had not already set my watch, thanks to Mitch, I would set it by a Chocola attack on MoveOn.org. Even more amazing than Chocola calling on his Democratic opponents to throw MoveOn under the bus was his claim in the April 4th article that MoveOn was responsible for our soldiers lack of body armor and up armored Humvees. Clean up your own backyard, hoss. I believe it was Donald Rumsfeld and the Republican controlled Congress that forced our troops to weld scrap metal to their Humvees and forced their families to purchase body armor, armor that the military did not provide. I know one Iraq vet who tells the story that he was issued the vest with two plates, one in front and one in back. He was soon told to give the back plate to one soldier and later to give the front plate to another soldier. He was then sent into combat with a vest that had no armor plating. Tax dollars at work…
Chocola also criticized MoveOn for calling for “moderation and restraint” after 9/11. Perhaps if we had exercised some moderation and restraint we would not have pulled troops away from the search for Osama bin Laden and inserted them into Iraq, a country with no ties to Al Queda or 9/11.
Finally, Chocola referred to MoveOn as a “radical group that does not share the views or values of Indiana’s 2nd district”. Is it me, or does that sound more like the far right wing of Chocola’s own Republican party? I am proud of every action I have taken that was associated with MoveOn, proud of the people-young and old-who I have met while participating in these actions and proud of those who stood with me and made their voice heard. We found each other with the help of MoveOn; MoveOn did not force us to do anything. If anyone is to blame, it is Chocola for forgetting who he represents and for then dismissing his constituents who spoke out against him.
Well, of course we all remember that MoveOn famously demanded that we go to war immediately with the Army we had, not the Army we wished we had — i.e. the kind of Army that’s properly equipped before it is sent off to fight an optional war.
Gee, wasn’t one of the 9/11 hijackers named MoveOn? And is it not true that MoveOn operatives were seen in the vicinity of the 9th ward levee shortly before it “failed” or was sabotaged? Is there no end to their liberal monkeyshines?