Desperate Congressman Holt (NJ-12) Goes Negative

Princeton, August 16, 2010 – Businessman Scott Sipprelle challenged career politician Rush Holt to stop hiding in his internet bunker and publicly defend the negative personal attacks and fabricated issues stands attributed to Sipprelle on Holt’s remade web site.

“Sadly, after 12 years in Washington, DC, this is what Rush Holt has become,” said Sipprelle. “Our Congressman is so desperate to cling to power that he intends to resort to cynical gutter campaigning, while attributing to me completely fabricated issue stands in an attempt to mislead voters and distract them from his failed record in Congress.”

Sipprelle, who issued his first debate challenge to Holt 135 days ago, said democracy thrives on informed and honest discussion of the important issues affecting the nation.

“While my website issues page is comprised of in-depth proposals to address America’s ills, Mr. Holt’s issues page amounts to little more than an attack ad against me. What greater evidence could there be that Mr. Holt has no plan? I challenge Mr. Holt to come out of hiding and have the courage to defend his own voting record, while sharing a stage with me in public,” added Sipprelle. “If debates were good enough for Lincoln and Douglas, they should be good enough for Rush Holt.”

A new page on Holt’s web site (www.rushholt.com/issues) personally attacks Sipprelle for being a self-made businessman, a financial expert, and a product of the private sector, while attributing issue positions to Sipprelle that are completely fabricated. Holt even goes so far as to attack Sipprelle for investing in a list comprised of 790 American companies that have purportedly exported jobs overseas, while failing to reveal that Holt himself has raked in nearly $200,000 in campaign contributions from that very same list of companies.

“This is hypocrisy in the extreme. If he honestly thinks these American corporations are so evil, then why is he asking them to fund his re-election campaigns year after year? His tired class warfare rhetoric is dividing our country, and his vilification of American companies is contributing to the downfall of our economy. Mr. Holt simply does not understand that you cannot create jobs by destroying job creators,” added Sipprelle.

Sipprelle said the issue positions Holt attributes to him are largely concocted out of thin air.

“I have never opposed equal pay for equal work for women nor have I ever proposed privatizing Social Security,” said Sipprelle. “I challenge Mr. Holt to provide any evidence, of any kind, that I have staked out those positions. The fact of the matter is that he can’t do it, because he fabricated the story.”

“My campaign is all about demanding integrity and accountability for the expenditure of the taxpayers’ money and an end to the job destruction and reckless financial management of the Pelosi Congress. Rush Holt’s smear tactics will not deter me from this mission, because the stakes for America are too high. It is truly time for change,” concluded Sipprelle.