If I Could Sue Garrett I Would

Representative Scott Garrett may have earned some praise from me lately regarding the bailout, but that doesn't mean it doesn't aggravate me to see him use my party name from 2006 yet again. In the first campaign mailer of his I've seen, once again he uses my "An Independent Voice" as his own, albeit, tagging on "For Change" at the end. For both infringement on my brand and false advertising, if I could sue Garrett I would.

At the heart of the matter are my own undecided political intentions. If I ever were to run again at any level, An Independent Voice is my brand. Over 100 people signed my petition stating that and about 2,600 voted for that brand. First time out of the gate, with no budget, we felt we had done pretty well with that. Yet Garrett's campaign uses my brand as it's own.

There's also the "truth in advertising" aspect that I feel is very important to fixing what's wrong with politics. Garrett votes the party line over 90% of the time, so he's hardly independent. When Garrett doesn't, he is often one of a few dozen lawmakers voting AGAINST CHANGE in the form of improvements to programs.

The Washington Post keeps a record of such votes and here a few recent ones:

• Garrett was one of 28 Representatives to vote against Elder Abuse Prevention.
• Garrett was one of 47 Representatives to vote against parity for coverage of treatment for things like autism and alcoholism.
• Garrett was one of 55 Representatives to vote against improving bridge inspections on interstate highways.
• Garrett was one of 59 Representatives to vote against improving Medicare.
• Garrett was one of 23 Representatives to vote against establishing an FBI mortgage fraud investigator to investigate the types of fraud that have contributed to the financial meltdown.

There are a number of examples of this, and I plan to do a more comprehensive review later. However, it really points to what most people hate about party politics when a campaign piece like Garrett's makes completely unfounded claims about their candidate. His claims of accomplisment within the mailer will take more time to discect as false, however they're stretching the truth or flat out misrepresenting his record as well.

Had Garrett's people just stolen my brand, they still could say he's bucked the party from time to time. However, adding for change on the end, when it seems the only time he bucks the party is to vote against change to improve programs is a complete misrepresentation of his voting record and patently disingenuous.

Certified Vote Count and Spending

So, the final totals appear to be in. There's a minor discrepancy between the State's numbers for Bergen and Bergen's numbers for Bergen. For the purposes of this blog I'll use the State's numbers. This is a rough chart of things, but you should get the idea.

Scott Garrett - 112,142 votes - $1,050,722 spent - $9.37 per vote
Paul Aronsohn - 89,503 votes - $535,448 spent - $5.98 per vote
Me - 2,597 votes - $1,879 spent* - $0.72 per vote

I'm very happy with the way things turned out and how efficient we were with our donors' dollars. Thanks again to everyone for their help.

*We didn't raise/spend enough to have to file with the FEC, which is why I don't have a page.