Wagner Mailer Takes On Ball The ‘Out Sourcer’
The campaign of Democrat Justin Wagner is set to blast out a mailer later today that targets Republican Sen. Greg Ball on a variety of economic issues and accuses him of supporting shipping jobs overseas.
The mailer seizes on a six-year-old quote from Ball in an English-language Indian business newspaper in which the then-Assembly candidate is discussing his real-estate business’s dealings in the country.
In Wagner’s mailer, Ball is quoted as saying, “A lot of people talk about outsourcing being a bad thing … we want to bring the American Dream to India.”
In the actual story, the quote is broken up over two different places. The “American dream” line appears to have been said in the context of building housing and economic development in India. Here are the full quotes for context:
The company’s Indian operations are located in Chennai. A fourth-generation real estate development company, Exceed wants to work on large township projects and hopes to bring American standards to Chennai. “We want to bring the American dream to India,” says Ball.
And the second:
He wants to link New York to a global economy. “A lot of people talk of outsourcing being a bad thing. In the US, sometimes we have a very insular culture. I don’t see a JP Morgan office here. I don’t even think it exists in Chennai. But it’s a huge financial institution in the US. If you sat with them and talked about opportunities here in India, you will probably have a limited discussion.”
A Google search and my own memory couldn’t recall a time in which Ball’s many political opponents over the years — both Democrats and Republicans — used this 2006 story against him. Someone please prove me wrong and send a link or two!
The mailer also takes Ball to task for not supporting an increase to the state’s minimum wage, along with his opposition to the Fair Pay Act and financial regulatory reform.
While the Republican-led Senate signaled to Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the Democratic-controlled Assembly that it would not allow a vote on increasing the minimum wage, Ball last week introduced a bill that would increase it to $8.50 and tie it a host of business tax cuts.
But the mailer out this morning, plus a campaign memo spinning fundraising totals that The Daily News had a sneak peak at yesterday, is part of what appears to be an invigorated effort.
Campaign finance filings show Ball spent more than $253,000 on radio and TV ads since July, a remarkable laying out of campaign resources in the Hudson Valley Senate district.
Ball spent $50,180 alone on radio air time, campaign finance records show.
Records show he has $151,324 left in the bank with one month to go before the November election. He’s also a prolific fundraiser, having received nearly $600,000 in contributions since the beginning of the year.
Still, the cash left on hand puts him on almost on par with Wagner, who reported $136,000 in the bank and has raised $325,000 for the effort (including a $35,000 loan from earlier in the year).
| Print article | This entry was posted by Nick Reisman on October 9, 2012 at 9:00 am, and is filed under Democrats, Republicans, State Senate. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |
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