On Sunday, Joy and I ventured into Bay Ridge and Bensonhurst to campaign for Steve Harrison, the Democrat running for the NY-13 Congressional seat against Vito Fossella. While doing so, we came up against just what is wrong with the Republican party: sleazy lies, threats and smears.

We were handing out Harrison literature outside a Catholic Church, clearly identifying our literature as being for "Steve Harrison for Congress." People in Bensonhurst and Bay Ridge were far more polite about accepting campaign literature than I found in my own Park Slope where people tended to look at us like we were insects. People coming out of the church were gracious and smiling. There were two supporters of the Republican candidate Vito Fossella there competing with us, which is no less than I would have expected.

One of the Republicans was a perfectly polite man. But his companion was a nasty troll of a woman who was a clear illustration of the complete lack of decency or values that plagues the Republican party today.

First of all, these two Republicans were not being honest about what they were handing out. Their flyer was Vito Fossella campaign literature, but as they handed it to people, they identified it as being about Catholic education. What, are they so embarassed about their candidate that they can't utter his name? Will no one take their flyers if they identify it as Fossella campaign literature? Come one, Republicans. Can't you be up front and honest for ONCE? No, I guess not. So they claimed they were passing out literature about Catholic education, never identifying it for the kind folks of Bay Ridge as Fossella campaign literature.

Then when someone asked which candidate (having been handed both pieces of lit and seening both names) was the Republican, I identified Fossella as the Republican and Harrison as the Democrat. The sneering Fossella woman actually jumped in to claim Fossella was Independent and got angry when we pointed out that he was a Republican and voted 90% of the time with Republican party line. She actually tried to get us to shut up as if the worst thing we could do is identify her candidate as Republican and point out the truthful statement that he voted solidly Republican. They cannot be honest about their candidate! He really IS a Republican and is one of Bush's most loyal Congressmen. Why can't she be honest about that!

Sick of having us point out to people that they were handing out Republican campaign literature (as if they were embarassed by that) the trollish woman actually walked past me and shoved into me. Apparantly being faced with the truth she became violent. But then she compouned it by turning to her companion and LIED TO HIM, telling him that I bumped into her. You can ask anyone I have campaigned opposite, including Yassky and Clarke supporters I chatted with during the primaries. I respect people's rights to campaign for candidates I am opposed to and I know full well that shoving someone is legally assault and battery. But this amoral Republican not only was willing to shove someone who was revealing the truth about her candidate (that he was Republican!) but would lie about it.

Is this what Republicans are all about today? Lying, violence and more lying. Not to mention that they are scared to death that people will realize Fossella is Republican! Don't they realize that on the ballot he will be clearly and properly identified as a Republican, NOT as an Independent? Has the Republican party become so horrible that they can't face the public and admit that they support a Republican.

Read my lips: VITO FOSSELLA IS A REPUBLICAN. He is NOT Independent in any way, shape or form. He is one of the most solidly Republican people in Congress. Why are you denying it?

Later, as we covered an election district elsewhere in Bay Ridge, Joy and I picked up a piece of Fossella literature that was on the sidewalk. Now it is clear that the lying of the Republican woman at the church comes straight from Fossella himself. Fossella was claiming that Steve Harrison would prevent the government from monitoring terrorists, making Americans less safe.

That is a lie. Period. And they probably know it. Harrison, like me and like most Democrats and ALL libertarians, oppose unConstitutional wiretapping of American citizens, something both Bush and Fossella support. Such illegal wiretapping is un-American, un-Constitutional and disgusting and, remember this, has NEVER exposed one single terrorist ever. What Harrison and most Democrats and all libertarians support is the LEGAL wiretapping of ANYONE that the government has probably cause to monitor, following American, Constitutional procedure that makes us better than the terrorists. Giving up our American values and our Constitution, which is what Fossella supports, means the terrorists have succeeded in destroying America because we will cease to be America.

Harrison's campaign literature is just as full of lies as his followers.

Republicans have abandoned all morality, all values...they have abandoned the truth. They have abandoned decency. They have abandoned America.

To Vito Fossella and the trollish Fossella follower: lies, violence and abandoning the Constitution are NOT what America needs or wants.

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