Peter Schorsch
In a case of “he said, he said,” two Florida legislative candidates are running full speed away from the National Rifle Association.
Here’s the back-and-forth.
On Friday, Democrat Jim Waldman blasted Gary Farmer’s campaign for getting it wrong.
In an email to supporters, Waldman wrote: “(A) political committee led by Gary Farmer is spreading lies about my record on guns. They’re spending tens of thousands of dollars mailing a FALSE claim to voters that I received an “A” from the NRA.”
The mailer starting the fracas:
Farmer’s campaign fired back on two fronts.
First, a screen shot provided by Farmer’s campaign to FloridaPolitics.com shows the NRA website appearing to validate its claim that Waldman HAD, at one point, received an “A” rating from the group.
Is the screen shot correct? It appears so. While the photos are undated, they clearly show him with an “A” rating.
See for yourself:
Second, Farmer’s camp provided links to two pro-NRA votes (here and here) Waldman cast while in the Florida House. These votes are up — with links to the House website — which seemingly verify Waldman did indeed vote with the NRA position.
And, in the interest of being perfectly accurate, the year Waldman cast those pro-NRA votes was not the year he allegedly got the “A” rating. That in itself seems a little odd on the NRA’s part.
If that’s not interesting enough, consider this: The NRA site now shows Waldman with a “D” — a grade Waldman is proud of; he even brags about this crappy rating from the NRA.
So, did Waldman call the NRA after Farmer’s mail piece, asking to have it changed? If so, how did THAT call go? “Hey, thanks for saying something nice about me, but could you please not do that?”
And if not, who changed the rating and how did they know to change it? Why would they?
That prompted some deeper digging by FloridaPolitics.com.
We found the VoteSmart.org website which also shows Waldman with an “A” rating from the NRA in 2010 — it’s hard to believe that is a coincidence and seems to bear out Farmer’s version of the story.
Walkman vehemently disagrees.
“Lobbyist Gary Farmer is outright lying about my record, and he should be called out for a deliberate attempt to mislead voters in his campaign mailers,” Waldman said in a statement to FloridaPolitics.com. “When the NRA gave me a D and F, I wore it as a badge of honor. I have been a strong advocate of gun control and as a state representative I sponsored legislation to enable cities and counties to regulate guns. I have opposed right-wing efforts in Tallahassee to deregulate guns — the very right wing agenda that Gary Farmer and organizations he led supported with more than $500,000 in campaign contributions. As a state senator, I will continue to fight the gun lobby.”
Either way, with three weeks out from when actual voters will start casting ballots, this race is going full throttle.
NRA-PVF Candidate Endorsements 2008:
NRA-PVF Candidate Endorsements 2010:
