STATEMENT OF FRANK SCATURRO ON 4TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT RACE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Akeem Mellis
Phone: (516) 881-7377
Date: August 1, 2012
Email: akeem@frankscaturro.com

The question of whether I should endorse Fran Becker for Congress normally would be simple to answer: As a proud, lifelong Republican, my standard always has been, as it shall remain, to endorse the Republican nominee barring egregious circumstances that would counsel doing otherwise.  Unfortunately, this election presents such circumstances.

To support a candidate in our system, we should demand that the candidate meet a minimal standard of ethics, integrity, and respect for the law.  Sadly, Mr. Becker fails this test.  He lied to the people he seeks to represent and brought disgrace upon himself and the Republican Party.  Any number of scandals in our history teach that character matters—that elected officials cannot operate unless they maintain a bond of trust with the people.  The notorious propaganda that has been exposed as a fraud is not my opponent’s only lie, but it constituted the central argument to voters for why they should vote for him.  The very essence of his campaign was a fraud.  For the good of the party, as a just apology to the voters, and for the cause of unseating Carolyn McCarthy, Mr. Becker should withdraw from this race.

Consider that we face the most protracted economic downturn since the Great Depression, a fiscal disaster that has mortgaged the next generation’s future, and a congresswoman who tells us that we’re paying for what we’re spending, that unemployment creates jobs.  We do not need more lies, but honest representation we can trust.  My commitment to honesty is unwavering.

Another factor that makes this situation so egregious is that Mr. Becker’s is not a viable campaign, but a placeholder candidacy propped up by the Nassau GOP Chairman.  His lack of interest in actually winning this congressional seat is demonstrated by the fact that it has been 20 years since he endorsed a candidate who won.  He reluctantly picked Mr. Becker at the last minute after failing to persuade another elected official to run.  With hardly a campaign of his own, the candidate showed contempt for the voters, acting as if the political machine would do his work for him and even refusing to debate following his substandard performance at a Hofstra University forum.  I have on reliable information that as my chances of winning were recognized within the organization, Chairman Mondello asked for information that could take me down.  If booting an election and trumping up a lie to destroy someone within his party’s fold is not a gross breach of trust with Republican voters, then nothing is.  Mr. Becker was not a viable candidate going into this race, and his electability has been further diminished by his conduct.

After a career that included fighting battles inside and outside Congress, blowing the whistle to Congress, writing about Congress, and teaching about Congress, I stepped up to run for Congress because I am sick of the tyranny of ulterior motives and want to do my part to bring my neighbors relief from a status quo that is increasingly unbearable.  The Republican Party must show that they are serious about real reform, because the Democratic Party of Carolyn McCarthy has abandoned John Kennedy’s challenge of 50 years ago to ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.  Their agenda has become all about buying votes and increasing the people’s dependency on government—not about creating jobs or helping those who truly need help.  Nassau County, however, is defenseless against the dependency agenda as long as its residents have to spend more and more of their lives working to support the government rather than their families.  More and more of them feel forced to move out of the county altogether!  Yet for the 17 years he served in the county legislature, Fran Becker did not offer us a principled alternative to the Democratic Party.  Instead, he gave political bosses a rubber stamp as one of the wealthiest counties in the nation, with one of the highest tax burdens in the nation, faced fiscal crisis after fiscal crisis.  That is not much of an alternative to a 16-year congresswoman who has been a rubber stamp for Nancy Pelosi.

All the while, the veneer of democracy in machine politics has masked an autocracy run for the enrichment of a tiny few at the top.  To sustain the system, the nomination process has been compromised by a wall of deception and intimidation that party bosses have tried to build.  When it is not only policy, but also tactics, that draw a resemblance to the Democratic Party, voters are truly denied a meaningful choice.  Our troops did not make the supreme sacrifice so that party bosses could use government largesse to undermine the integrity of elections.

Anyone who still thinks it would be a service to the people or the Republican Party for me to endorse Mr. Becker this year should consider that this precise scenario has already played out.  In 2010, I did endorse Mr. Becker after losing the primary election and made several offers to help him.  The result was, as Michael Barone observed, an election booted in Rep. McCarthy’s favor, no accountability for Chairman Mondello, and more of the same arrogant nonsense, with even more grotesque lying, in the 2012 cycle.  Incredibly, even after the primary, Mr. Becker refuses to renounce his conduct, even in personal conversation.  He essentially says, “Support me,” but that support would not be worth the effort of either he or the Nassau GOP leadership renouncing fraud and intimidation now or in the future.  This illustrates how much political deviancy has been defined down in Nassau County, and if we do not protest this conduct, we will invite more of the same in 2014, with yet another term for Carolyn McCarthy.

Many Republicans are sickened at this situation, but I encourage them to persevere.  The Republican Party is a name that represents the great American tradition of freedom and human dignity embraced by Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan.  It is still producing leaders like Paul Ryan and Scott Walker who I believe are working to set the direction we need to save our country from its current crisis.  Nassau County is the aberration, not the trend.  Don’t let unworthy men who have hijacked the label locally continue to turn Republicans away.  In the context of New York’s unique fusion party system, we need to fight on every front to take our country back.  The fight must be waged from inside and outside the party.  Just as it has before, my candidacy remains a vehicle by which voters can reclaim their future by telling their leaders that tomorrow will be a new day in Nassau County.  In that tomorrow, those who despair that the bad guys always win shall know that here, as elsewhere in America, corruption does not pay.

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