Republican Congressional candidate John Katko is trying to hold Rep. Dan Maffei to a clean campaign pledge the congressman proposed early in the campaign.
To flash back to April, Congressman Dan Maffei (D-Syracuse) called on Katko, the former federal prosecutor trying to unseat him in the 24th Congressional District, to run a straight forward, issued-based campaign.
Katko never signed the pledge, saying he couldn’t afford to follow an aspect of it that called for the equivalent of half of outside money that came from unnamed sources spent on the race to be donated to charity.
Maffei’s pledge asked for the campaigns to not condone ads from Super PACs that didn't disclose their donor lists. The first such ad from a Super PAC began running this week in support of Maffei. (The PAC, House Majority, does list its donors with the Federal Election Commission.)
There have been more attacks aired against Katko than have been reciprocated, according to an analysis done by WRVO.
"I'm going to hold him to" the pledge, Katko said.
"I never signed that pledge because I’ve been running a clean campaign and I don’t think I’ve been called on it," he said Tuesday.
He calls the ads against him "absurd."
"[Maffei has] been running a dirty campaign, a nasty campaign, an unfair campaign," Katko said.
Maffei has said the negative ads aired by his campaign and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee touch on legitimate issues.
His campaign says it’s “disappointing” Katko didn’t sign the campaign pledge. His campaign manager says in a statement that it is Katko that has run the dishonest campaign full of personal attacks.
The statement from campaign manager Kane Miller:
It is disappointing that John Katko refused to sign the 'Central New York Clean Campaign Pledge' earlier this year and refused to commit to an honest campaign without influence from outside shady groups that do not disclose their donors. While Rep. Maffei is committed to creating jobs in the region and strengthening the middle class, Katko has run a campaign of personal attacks and dishonest rhetoric because he knows that his agenda is too radical for Central New York.
At the last financial filing deadline, Katko’s campaign had about $360,000 on hand. Maffei’s campaign had just under $1.4 million.
The new ad from House Majority PAC against John Katko:
http://youtu.be/HxuKhfl8k6A