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Health & Fitness

Campaigning with Lies and Half-Truths

It's the silly season again. No, I'm not talking about the holidays'. I'm talking about election season. As we enter the proverbial homestretch, both political parties are lobbing bombs at each other – not in an effort to convince voters that Candidate A is better; more so to convince voters Candidate B is unacceptable.  While some political bombs are actually true and have facts supporting them, most are half-truths at best.

For those that are old enough, remember how John F. Kennedy was going to take marching orders from the Pope? How about the black baby John McCain fathered during the 2000 South Carolina Presidential Primary? Was it Kenya or Indonesia, Barack Obama's birthplace?

Ed Day, Republican candidate for Rockland County Executive seems to have adopted the Karl Rove playbook. With a callous disregard for mundane things like facts, Ed is plowing ahead with his campaign.

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·         "Ed Day voted against every budget since 2008" – Um, no. Actually, Ed Day voted YES on one of the worst budgets in recent memory, the 2009 budget. That was the budget that gave Scott Vanderhoef a 12.5% retroactive pay raise, paid for by tax increases for working families and cuts to critical social services.

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·         "David Fried is the 'bloc' candidate" – This lie ignores the fact that David lost the Town of Ramapo in his primary against New Square's legislator, Ilan Schoenberger. In fact, Fried was outspent by his two Ramapo opponents by nearly 6 to 1. In the Village of Kaser, David received ZERO votes. Speaking of Kaser, rumors are rampant that Ramapo and Spring Valley Justice Alan Simon is serving as Ed's surrogate in Kaser. Such surrogacy is of course illegal for sitting judges. Remember: Simon won the unanimous support of Kaser in his 2002 State Assembly primary against Ryan Karben and Ellen Jaffee.

·         "David created for himself a job in the Sheriff's Department" – If you look at the record, David recused himself from voting, as he was planning on applying for a job – so David did NOT vote to create a job for himself. You know who did vote to create the job? Ed Day. And it's also noteworthy Ed doesn't have a single complaint about David's performance on the job. In fact, David brought in millions of dollars in grant money for cash-strapped local police departments across Rockland County.

·         "David Fried took money from convicted felons" – The donors in question, at the time of their donations, had not been charged (yet alone convicted) of any crime. Ed Day thinks David should be able to control the FUTURE behavior of his donors. One of the donors in question, Gregg Brie, also donated to Ed Day. Has David made this an issue? Has David pointed out how Ed praised Gregg Brie on the record at the County Legislature?

The moral of the story: take anything and everything said by Ed Day with a grain of salt. He's been caught lying and hasn't retracted anything he's said. Some of these lies are bold faced, others mere whispers through the grapevine. Regardless, it's a misinformation campaign worthy of Karl Rove and the Tea Party. Perhaps tomorrow Ed will claim David is a Kenyan Muslim... 

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