NEW VIDEO: Where’s the Accountability Joe? How Long Until Sestak Holds Himself Accountable?
For Immediate Release—July 21, 2010
Contact: Nachama Soloveichik • Communications Director • 484.809.7994 • 646.528.1029
Contact: Kristin Anderson • Deputy Communications Director • 484.809.7994 • 612.280.5196
Contact: Tim Kelly • Press Secretary • 484.809.7994
Allentown, PA – The Toomey campaign released a new video today highlighting Congressman Joe Sestak’s repeated call for accountability and his failure to hold himself accountable.
The Toomey campaign has also introduced a clock at the top of its website, counting the days, hours, minutes, and seconds until Congressman Sestak lives up to his pledge.
According to an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer last week, Joe Sestak made a pledge on his campaign website, stating: “If an organization or individual has made a request for an appropriations project, and has made a contribution to his campaign, he returns that contribution.” But according to the same Inquirer article, Congressman Sestak violated his own pledge, taking $119,650 in contributions from people who received earmarks from him.
When pressed by reporters yesterday, Congressman Sestak told the Pittsburgh Tribune Review that he “never intended to publicize his donation-return policy, which appears in his campaign website’s Ethics section.” Congressman Sestak then added, “I just wanted a quiet sense of accountability.”
Excuse me? There is only one kind of accountability – quiet or loud – and it starts with living up to one’s promises.
“Every time you turn on the TV, Congressman Sestak is preaching about accountability,” Toomey Communications Director Nachama Soloveichik said, “but his ‘accountability’ is worth nothing if he can’t live up to his own promises. Congressman Sestak can’t have it both ways – either he is a Washington insider who makes promises he refuses to keep or he will return the $119,650 in contributions he received from earmark recipients like he promised to. So which will it be?”
