In full, here are statements from the Paul Thibault and Lloyd Smucker campaigns to the New Era this morning, shortly after Smucker made public his campaign finance report showing he did not raise $185,000 over two weeks in late January and early February as his campaign had initially claimed.
FROM THE THIBAULT CAMPAIGN:
“Lloyd the Builder”…Who is Really Funding Your Campaign?
After months of claiming a huge financial advantage from “a wide‐spread” range of support…only his deception of the residents of the 13th Senatorial District rings true.
Today, campaign finance reports in the 13th Senatorial district were due, and none more anxiously awaited than those of Lloyd Smucker, who earlier had announced that in just 2 weeks he had raised over $185,000 that proved his wide range of support.
However, his reports tell quite a different story, and the story should be quite disturbing to those in the 13th Senatorial district. “According to Lloyd’s own finance reports, he had raised only about $29,150 by the time he sent that release out. But more disturbing is the fact that of the total $247,000 Lloyd has now raised, he has personally put in $121,000 of his own money and of the rest the construction industry accounts for 70% of his total donations!” said Scott Migli, Thibault campaign consultant. “To make matters even worse, he increased the level of deception by holding a fundraiser on the same night when all attention was focused on the Lancaster ounty Republican Party’s big dinner. Lloyd scheduled a “post‐filing” fundraiser with his construction cronies to raise even more money from them. How can one honestly say they are going to go to Harrisburg and fight for farmland preservation and reform, yet have his entire campaign funded by one special interest group that wants nothing more than to build on our beautiful farmlnd,” said Migli.
Smucker is quoted on his website as saying, “Career politicians and special interests have resulted in our government spending too much, taxing too much and delivering too little – while the big issues never get resolved.” “His own words are simply outright lies, and he needs to be exposed for it. As Lloyd and his campaign have gone after people’s honor and integrity for two weeks, it is now his turn to answer the questions. Mine are, why are you lying to the people of the 13th? Are you trying to buy your way to Harrisburg only to meet the needs of the Associated Builders and Contractors and to the detiment to the farmers and people of the 13th?” said Migli.
“Furthermore”, he said, “now we need to ask Smucker : Who first approached you to run? What promises did they make to you? What did they demand in return? You owe the people of the 13th District a full explanation – at last”.
Paul Thibault added, “I’ve talked at length about my record for the last two months. It’s disappointing to see another candidate, first misrepresent that record, and then, more egregiously, hide his own activities. I heard Lloyd Smucker talk about his support of reform, but now I see that his actions are all about special interests – in particular, just one special interest, namely, the industry he comes out of.”
FROM THE SMUCKER CAMPAIGN:
As reported by the newspaper, Mr. Thibault started these negative attacks once taxpayers found out he has a worse record than Governor Rendell when it comes to raising property taxes, spending and debt. The fact is that Lloyd Smucker entered this race as an outsider and now has nearly 200 different donors to his campaign. Plus, Lloyd has shown the courage to put his own money into this campaign to insure he isn’t beholden to anyone. Mr. Thibault, on the other hand, still has not released his report to the press or public, so what is he hiding? Taxpayers want an outsider, someone who is successful in the real world, someone who never raised property taxes and someone who’ll work for them in the Senate, and that’s Lloyd Smucker.
