WASINGER EXPANDS 69-COUNTY TOUR TO INCLUDE FAIRFAX COUNTY

Ladies and Gentlemen, today is a very important day in the Rob Wasinger for Congress campaign. Today is the day that Rob Wasinger, who has bragged extensively about supposedly being the only candidate to tour all 69 First District counties, takes his campaign to Fairfax County, Virginia.

As you can see below, Rob is throwing a fancy-schmancy fundraiser tonight in the wealthy little enclave of Lorton, Virginia, right outside our nation's capitol. This makes perfect sense, of course, since Rob Wasinger receives a great deal of his financial backing from people who live in The Old Dominion State. It also makes sense since Rob still owns his house in McClean, Virginia, which is just a hop, skip, and a jump across I-95 to the other side of Fairfax County.

Does anyone else find it ironic that Rob has to go all the way to Virginia to find people to financially support his campaign, yet he lists the sponsors and co-hosts of his fundraiser as "Kansas Sunflower Committee", "Kansas Golden Wheat Committee", or "Kansas Meadowlawk Committee?" My guess is that the people who attend this fundraiser have probably never even seen golden wheat before and have no clue what a meadowlark is.

Nevermind that Lorton, Virginia is roughly 1,200 miles from the Eastern-most portion of Kansas' Big First. This is where Rob's cash cow lives.

Once you count the other Northern Virginia communities that Rob has made a staple of his campaign (Alexandria, Arlington, Prince William, Loudon, etc.) his 69 county tour is up to at least 74 counties.

Congrats to Rob Wasinger for being the first candidate in the race to tour all of Northern Virginia!

Wasinger campaign suffers from amnesia... again

In case anyone was at home sitting on pins and needles, just waiting to see what Rob Wasinger’s reaction to the Obama Energy Tax would be, they found their answer in a February 12 press release.

The best part of the press release was the last paragraph, which is a real whopper: “To learn more about the proposed taxes on the energy industry, please visit Americans for Tax Reform. Wasinger was the first candidate to sign the Taxpayer Protection Pledge.”

Rob Wasinger (or whoever writes his press releases) clearly suffers either from illusions of grandeur or has a frighteningly severe case of amnesia. Only a small amount of research would yield that Tim Huelskamp signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge 13 years ago! On Huelskamp’s website, Karl Peterjohn, former Executive Director of the Kansas Taxpayer’s Network, makes this same observation when he endorsed Huelskamp.

What’s more, Huelskamp didn’t just sign the pledge, he was named Chairman of the Kansas Taxpayer Protection Caucus in 2005. And to add insult to injury, Huelskamp even touted his signing of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge in his state senate commercials in some of his past campaigns.

This is an inconvenient fact I've pointed out at least twice before and clearly his supporters monitor my blog, so he has to be aware that he is lying. So does Rob just not care that he's sending out press releases that tell a lie or is it being done on purpose?

It's just sad. All he'd have to do is take out the word "first" and the release would have been factually correct. But Rob just can't seem to get that done.

That said, there is an even larger point worth making; not only did Tim Huelskamp take the Taxpayer Protection Pledge 13 years ago, whereas Rob Wasinger took it less than 13 months ago, but Huelskamp has also kept his pledge to the voters. How many representatives or senators can say that over 13 years they've never cast a vote for a tax increase? Almost none.

So Rob, keep telling yourself that you signed this pledge first or that pledge first. One of your opponents has actually been walking the walk for more than a decade now. That’s gotta sting. What do you tell prospective voters? “If you vote for me, I’ll go represent you just as well as Huelskamp has?” That has to be a tough sell.

Huelskamp comes up big in fundraising

On the back of gaining donations from every county in the big First District, Tim Huelskamp announced today that he had outraised all other candidates and had more than $100K in cash on hand than his nearest challenger.

Huelskamp reported raising over $136,000 during the fourth quarter. That was followed by $123,000 by Jim Barnett and barely over $100,000 by Rob Wasinger. Tracey Mann raised nearly $72,000 with Monte Shadwick and Sue Boldra both raising less than $20,000.

So far no other candidate has had the ability to gain contributions from every county in the district. It's really easy to talk a talk. Send out some emails, roll into town and spend 15 minutes for a quick photo op.

It's an entirely different game to get a contribution when there. The fact is so far the people of the first district have been voting; voting with their hard earned money. And clearly the winner of those votes has been Tim Huelskamp.

And while Huelskamp continues to shine in funds raised, he's also leading the pack in cash on hand. Huelskamp is way out front with nearly half a million on hand, followed distantly by Barnett with $374,000 on hand. Of course that includes a $100,000 loan Barnett made to himself.

Barnett has once again turned in a year end report with spotty information. "Requested" and "undisclosed" appear less than in previous reports, but are still there. When will Jim Barnett hire competent staff that can track down basic, required FEC information? When will Jim Barnett finally show some respect for the people of Kansas and their right to know?

Recent filings suggest not anytime soon. Barnett choose to wait until two days before a filing deadline to fix employer and occupation information in his third quarter report. That's of course more than two months after filing an amendment to show they had more cash on hand than reported earlier. It looks like when it might make him look bad, they can act quickly. When it comes to the public's right to know... well... that can take a back seat to getting elected, right Jim???

Now, want to know the sad part? It took me only a few pages before I found "undisclosed" on his amended third quarter report. And who didn't disclose the name of their employer? Uh, an ophthalmologist in Emporia. You know, a doctor that Barnett has worked with for years. It's so ridiculous it's unbelievable.

And that's the amended report.

So, I'm sure you'll be hearing about another request for information from the FEC. I personally wonder when the FEC will stop asking the Barnett campaign to please obey the law and start slapping on some fines. They're clearly asking for it.

Then again, this thumbing his nose at the law doesn't seem to be helping. Huelskamp is still the front runner in funds raised, cash on hand, and clearly with the wallets of First District voters.