On NY1 last night, the candidates in the special election to replace Carl Kruger in the State Senate battled it out for the first and only debate before the March 20th special election. And the two candidates, Democrat Lew Fidler and Republican David Storobin, spent the vast majority of their time arguing over which campaign has been more negative.
“My campaign has been largely positive, you’ve probably had to look a little harder to find a piece of negative mail from my campaign than you would from Mr. Storobin’s,” Mr. Fidler said in response to the show’s host, Errol Louis, asking him about the Senate Democrats’ “child molester” ad.
“They’re strictly negative. He has questioned my character, he has distorted my record in one way after another after another, suggesting I’m some kind of tax and spend liberal,” he continued. “He’s questioned my Jewishness. I quite frankly think — after seven or eight smacks — we gave him a smack back. I think it was legitimate.”
Mr. Storobin, for his part, responded by bringing up Mr. Fidler’s infamous “neo-Nazi” remarks, and accused Mr. Fidler’s campaign of being the overwhelmingly one.
“All throughout, up until right now, there’s been one political attack after another,” Mr. Storobin said. “Gregory Davidzon has dedicated … his radio station to more or less attacking me every single day, in the most grotesque, brutal ways possible, questioning my patriotism, questioning everything out there, and this is somebody that is a supporter and a close ally of Mr. Fidler.”
“Mr. Fidler has decided to make mudslinging the main point of his campaign and it’s shameful,” he added.
“I think you’ve taken the campaign into the gutter and I think you should look into the mirror,” Mr. Fidler responded, adding, about the neo-Nazi remarks, “I shouldn’t have used the word ‘ties.’ If you want that as an apology, I guess you got it.”
After the debate, Mr. Storobin’s campaign blasted out a press release in response to Mr. Fidler’s half-apology.
“I appreciate Mr. Fidler’s apology and now we can move forward,” he said in the statement.
