The Stewart for Mayor campaign, devoid of substantive ideas and relying on out of town interests such as Waterbury-based absentee landlord group, is headed for the gutter and negative campaigning, according the New Britain DTC as the campaign enters its final two weekends.
In this week's post at www.newbritaindemocrat.org reports are surfacing about push poll tactics on the part of the new Team Stewart:
Democratic Town Chairman John McNamara said today the Stewart for Mayor campaign has been conducting an anonymous telephone poll to mislead voters and falsely link Democratic Mayor Tim O'Brien to property tax hikes."Members of the Democratic Town Committee and other residents have informed our campaign that they were on the receiving end of a push poll conducted directly from Stewart for Mayor headquarters," said McNamara. "Anonymous callers in the Stewart campaign are asking residents if they 'support Mayor O'Brien's tax increase' and who their preference is for mayor."
The DTC statement continued:
"The Republican push poll is another attempt by the Stewart campaign to distort the record on taxes and engage in negative campaigning as Election Day approaches. The Stewart campaign has been happy to peddle their water department lie and buddy up with outside corporate groups. Now they're disguising a call as a supposedly unbiased survey. It comes right out of the GOP's bag of dirty tricks to attack an opponent with misleading information. It shows desperation and no respect for voters who deserve to know what campaign and political party is contacting them.
The Republican nominee and her cohorts keep complaining that everyone's taxes have gone up without providing any facts. Theirs is a campaign of innuendo and distortion because they have nothing to offer on issues that matter to voters.
It is a matter of record that 77% of single family homeowners are paying less in property taxes this year because of reassessments. The percentage exceeds 90" for two and three family residence.
McNamara called on the Stewart campaign to cease the push poll and conduct their campaign activities with full disclosure. "Voters deserve better than to be on the receiving end of bogus political surveying by the Republican mayoral campaign."
