In poker and in politics, you don’t get to play the cards you wish you had, but the cards you’re dealt. In the Massachusetts special election for US Senate, Republican nominee Gabriel Gomez doesn’t have too many cards in his bid to defeat Democratic nominee Ed Markey, who’s been in the House of Representatives since Gerald Ford was President, winning his own special election two months before Jimmy Carter beat Ford. Needless to say, Markey’s got a bit of advantage over the newcomer on ideology, name recognition, and fundraising.
Gomez needs to hit Markey as an out-of-touch lifetime politician only interested in enriching Washington at the expense of Massachusetts, and has settled on attacking Markey on taxes. That may not be a strong play in Massachusetts, where tax hikes might prove more popular than in most of the rest of the country, but Markey gives Gomez a hand in this clip:
Q: “Is there an instance where the party leadership, the Democratic leadership, have pushed for a higher tax, an income tax increase, and you’ve said no?”
MARKEY: “Um… well, I, I would review… the… my record and I will get back to you on that.”
The Boston Globe reported yesterday on Gomez’ strategy:
Republican Senate nominee Gabriel E. Gomez will attack Democratic US Representative Edward J. Markey on Tuesday for voting nearly 300 times in favor of higher taxes, a Gomez campaign adviser said.
At an afternoon event in Mattapan, Gomez will argue that Markey’s voting record during 37 years in Congress, including 271 votes in favor of higher taxes, has harmed small businesses. According to his campaign, Gomez will argue for “real tax reform” and a lower corporate tax rate.
“I can understand why Ed Markey thinks the answer to everything is higher taxes and more spending. He’s never had a real job in the real world,” Gomez will argue, according to excerpts provided by his campaign. “He is an out of touch, career Washington politician who has never had to make a payroll or balance a budget.”
Markey’s team tried responding to the Gomez strategy:
Markey spokesman Andrew Zucker defended the Congressman. “Ed Markey has voted to enact more than a trillion dollars in tax cuts for small businesses, working families and the middle class. Equally important, he’s stood up to Republicans in Congress by fighting to close corporate tax loopholes, end unnecessary deductions and save $700 billion over ten years by putting a stop to corporate tax evasion that rewards companies for shipping jobs overseas,” Zucker said.
Markey himself undid that defense with this stumbling response. After all, it shouldn’t be too difficult for an 18-term Democrat to recall opposing his party on a tax increase; it would be a rather rare event. Furthermore, this tactic would be easy to predict, which means Markey should have been prepared for it with at least one or two examples, especially after voting 271 times for tax increases over 36+ years — an average of 7.5 tax-hike votes per year.
It also didn’t help that when Markey finally released his tax returns last week under pressure from Gomez, he turned out to pay less than 20% in his effective tax rate:
US Representative Edward J. Markey, the Democratic nominee for the US Senate, paid an effective tax rate of less than 20 percent over the past eight years, claiming large deductions for his mortgages, his travel expenses, and his car, his tax returns show. …
But Markey also wrote off large payments for mortgage interest, property taxes, and business expenses, in itemized deductions that ranged from a low of $38,378 to a high of $49,066 a year.
I doubt this will flip the race all on its own, but it scores points and puts Markey on defense. Even in Massachusetts, that’s a tough place for a Democrat to be in a special election.
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