An image on the parody site. Credit: californiabrian.com
Credit: californiabrian.com
The race for the Eighth Congressional District is already getting ugly.
A view of the “Brian 2016! ” website, which notes it was paid for by Democratic congressional candidate Steve Santarsiero, calls out Republican congressional candidate Brian Fitzpatrick’s campaign on many issues, most of all his return to the Eight District after living in California for the past few years.
A slideshow of images shows doctored images of Fitzpatrick, who lived in California for a portion of his time as an FBI agent, carrying a surf board on West Coast beach with the word “Proven Opportunist.” Other images show Fitzpatrick superimposed over sunny destinations, with one saying,” carpetbagging we can believe in.”
A fake letter from Fitzpatrick on the website starts with “Dudes and Dudettes,” a clear reference to California’s surf culture.
Credit: californiabrian.com
Fitzpatrick’s campaign noted recently that the candidate, who is the brother of retiring Republican Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick, lives in Middletown after moving back from California.
“While Brian Fitzpatrick’s run for Congress is based only on a last name, he hasn’t made it a priority to have a website or stake out any issue positions. We believe this district deserves someone who has been working in the community for years, raising a family here and who will put voters – not their own political ambitions first – and that is the point of CaliforniaBrian.com,” Eric Goldman, Santarsiero’s campaign manager, said in a statement to LevittownNow.com.
Republicans aren’t happy about the parody website that started earlier this year at ElectBrianFitzpatrick.com.
“I called on the FEC to investigate Democrat Steve Santarsiero today because the evidence is clear that his dirty trick website broke the law,” Republican Party of Pennsylvania Chairman Rob Gleason said. “By running a website claiming to be another candidate for Congress, Democrat Steve Santarsiero resorted to the lowest of the lows.”
Gleason said the parody website, which Santarsiero has put a disclaimer on, “intentionally creates the false impression that it is the authorized campaign committee of Brian Fitzpatrick, which is a violation under 11 C.F.R. § 102.14. Furthermore, the FEC has issued two well-documented Advisory Opinions detailing why dirty tricks like Santariero’s are illegal.”
“It is quite common for campaign and candidate committees to create parody websites so it’s difficult to discern why the state party chose to do this. It may be related to the fact that for some time Fitzpatrick didn’t have a website. Even today, it is just one rather rudimentary page,” PoliticsPA.com reported.
Bucks County Republicans often threw around the word “carpetbagger” when Democrat Kevin Strouse unsuccessfully ran for congress in 2014. Strouse moved to Bensalem and then Middletown from outside the Eighth District after service in the military and intelligence community.
While Santarsiero is already hitting one of the three Republicans running for the primary, he still needs to beat fellow Democrat Shaughnessy Naughton in the primary. Santarsiero and Fitzpatrick seem to have gained the most traction with their respective national party committees leading up the primary election.
By 12:30 p.m. Friday, an official from Fitzpatrick’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment or a request to speak with the retired FBI agent.
