Why Meuser lost to Hackett

May 06, 2008 08:43 am

— Some people have asked why Dan Meuser lost to Chris Hackett in the race for the Republican nomination for the 10th Congressional District in the recent Republican primary.
Dan Meuser campaigned almost non-stop, reached out to more than 10,000 people in this district, had the support of the vast majority of Republican office-holders throughout the 14 counties of this district, had a very competent campaign staff, stayed positive during the entire campaign until his opponent first went negative, and, in general, conducted just about a "picture perfect" campaign. So how could he lose to Chris Hackett?
The short answer is negative campaigning. Chris Hackett started to go negative a few weeks before the end of the campaign. And Dan Meuser had no choice but to respond. The sad problem is that negative campaigning is bad for our Grand Old Party. It makes it more difficult for us to come together after the primary.
Hackett pointed out that Dan's company was fined 13 years ago when it was discovered that there were three illegal aliens among the more than 1,000 employees in his company.
The screening process for hiring new employees was tightened and it hasn't happened since. Chris Hackett had an illegal alien working in his home as a domestic worker for at least two years and then fired her part way through the campaign. And Chris Hackett was observed demonstrating outside a building where the pro-illegal alien former Mexican president was speaking.
That seemed commendable, until it was discovered that one of Hackett's companies was a large sponsor of the effort to bring Vicente Fox to the event.
Two of Hackett's extremely negative ads resulted in Dan's defeat. The first negative ad concerned Hillary Clinton. The industry-wide PAC which bears Dan's company's name made a donation to Hiliary Clinton. And there were a couple other contributions to some Democrats over the years. Of course this bothered me, until I remembered that all large corporations give at least something to both political parties. In response, we pointed out that 90 percent of Dan's donations went to Republicans while 80 percent of Chris Hackett's contributions went to Democrats, including a donation to a Luzerne County Democrat commissioner, which helped Hackett land a $700,000 no-bid contract for one of his companies. But the constant re-play of the "Hillary ad" did severe damage to Dan's campaign.
What really did Dan in was an extremely vicious ad that made him look like a criminal, a racketeer. The ad accuses Dan of stealing. Here are the facts: eight years ago Dan's company presented a marketing plan to Medicare in writing, prior to its initiation, and believed that it was approved. Two years later, Medicare stated that the plan was not technically in compliance with Medicare marketing rules and so the company paid a fine. Another subject of this ad dealt with computers. When a company uses software, it must buy a license for each of its computers. Dan's company has over a thousand computers and on this occasion underestimated the number of computers that would be using the software. So the company was fined, paid the fine, and moved on. One of my former students who has been doing volunteer work for Dan told me the same thing happened to the company that employs him. So it's not uncommon.
I did not personally see this last ad. I was too busy out campaigning for Dan. But my wife saw it and she stated that it was character assassination. In fact, she vows she won't vote for Hackett. She won't vote for Carney, either, she'll leave that part of the ballot blank.
I won't even try to convince her otherwise until I manage to see this ad.
Though I still am devastated over this election loss, my usual reaction to a defeat at the polls is that no one should be a "sore loser." But if a campaign is so vicious that it employs "slash and burn" political dirty tricks of the worst kind, then other factors must be considered. Should decent people of principal tolerate and even reward a "scorched earth" campaign? As a member of the Republican State Committee, I suppose I'll have to end up supporting Hackett, but I am irate at the extreme negativity of his campaign.
Dan Meuser is one of the finest persons I've ever met. He conducted a terrific campaign that was completely honorable from beginning to end.
His pollster told him about two weeks before the election that he would win by a fair margin.
To think that he could lose the election because of outrageous and unscrupulous negative advertising which, if my wife is correct, amounted to character assassination, makes me livid.
n Donald J. Ely, of Sunbury, was a senior adviser for the Meuser Campaign and he is a member of the Republican State Committee, representing Northumberland County.