Brogdon: Compromise Ad Hits Too Close to Home for Fallin

Republican gubernatorial candidate Randy Brogdon continues to slam Mary Fallin for her vote on the bank bailout in another defense of his "Mary Fallin Compromise" ad.

Compromise Ad Hits Too Close to Home
Fallin stays hidden, sends out a spokesman, hopes Election Day gets here soon

(Oklahoma City) -- In an attempt to divert attention away from Rep. Mary Fallin’s Bailout Vote, The Fallin Campaign falsely characterizes the Compromise Ad as misleading and untrue.

“The ad speaks specifically to the key differences between my opponent and me” says Brogdon.  The premise of the ad is that Rep. Fallin too often compromises core values in the name of political expediency. We point out in our ad, three instances where those compromises were very bad.

• Rep. Fallin voted for the near trillion dollar bailout of banks, brokerages and mortgage lenders, I would not have. (http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll681.xml)
• Rep. Fallin had accepted well over $100,000 from the industries that she voted to bail out for nearly a trillion dollars. I would have neither bailed them out, nor would I accept money from the beneficiaries of such a controversial vote. http://www.ok.gov/ethics/public/search_reports_2.php
• She requested and received tens of millions in earmarked spending from a stimulus package she mocked and claimed to oppose. However, when it got time to bring home the bacon, she didn’t really care from where the money came. (here is the link to Mary’s earmark page on Open Secrets http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/earmarks.php?fy=FY10&cid=N00027781&cycle=2010 )

Rep. Fallin not only voted for the Bailout, but she has accepted over $120,000 dollars from individual bankers and their Political Action Committees. That doesn’t include contributions made by lobbyists employed by those banks and mortgage lenders. Nor does it include the final primary disclosure report.

The Banking Bailout was directed at the entire industry, since banks all loan one another money in a revolving fashion. Therefore, one or two banks unable to repay their overnight funds can cause a domino effect on other banks. So you need not have received money directly from the government to be a beneficiary of the bailout.

However, Rep Fallin has received a maximum contribution from the CEO of one Oklahoma bank, which received over $30 million directly from the Bailout fund. She received thousands more from other bank employees and the PAC run by the bank.

This is all perfectly legal; there is no proof of quid pro quo. However, Senator Brogdon questions the ethics of such contributions, and says he would not accept the money under similar circumstances. Circumstances that the Senator insists are extremely unlikely to occur.

The Fallin campaign attempts to cast doubt on our claims regarding Rep. Fallin’s earmark spending. However, that just can’t be done because recently adopted transparency legislation requires earmark requests to be accessible through the Congressional Districts website.

For Fiscal Year 2010, Rep. Fallin requested and received over $22 million in earmark spending. She ranked 161st out of 435 members of Congress in money spent. The documentation of this fact comes through the 5th Congressional District website.

The fact remains the Rep. Fallin voted for the Bailout, requested millions in earmark spending, and accepted contributions from Bailout beneficiaries.

Calling these failures in performance compromises, is generous, they are more accurately serious lapses in judgment. To deny they happened or to downplay their significance is profoundly dishonest. The impact of these lapses is limited as one of 435 in Congress. However, as Governor such errors will have far greater consequences.

If I read this correctly, the Brogdon campaign is interpreting campaign contributions from any bank employee as a contribution from a "bailout beneficiary". If so, he has received a few hundred dollars from bank employees.

As I have said before, I dislike this style of campaigning. Where is that Reagan sense of optimism and positivism we Republicans so love to remember? Randy Brogdon would be better served by focusing on his many positive points, and talking about Oklahoma issues, rather than congressional issues.