Candidates Differentiated by Campaign Funding – Voters beware!

By: Mike Madigan

The Buffalo News revealed that Kevin Stocker funded a majority of his primary campaign victory. The News as well revealed that his opponents campaign’s were funded with tens of thousands in special interest money to buy a NY Senate seat for them in exchange for influence on their votes in the senate. The senate seat pays its holder $79,500 – far less than what is being spent by special interests to get Stocker’s two special interest dependent candidates elected.

When asked about how his campaign is being funded Kevin Stocker stated “I’m financing my own campaign- I am independent and plan to stay that way – no strings attached.“

Regardless of the lopsided many folds lower funding of the former Prosecutor’s campaign; Stocker’s door to door campaign of honesty and respect for his constituents resonated with voters delivering him a landslide victory over the truth challenged Grisanti in the recently held Republican Primary.

A similar funding disparity existed in the Democrat Primary for the same senate seat. Despite the many folds funding advantage that Panepinto had over his opponent he barely won with close to half of the Democrat primary voters rejecting him as a candidate as reported by the Buffalo News– likely due to his extremely tainted history of corruption.

Most voters in the NY 60th district feel NY State government is corrupt and that this corruption must be cleaned out not bolstered by electing special interest owned political operatives well known for their lying, deceiving and fraudulent activity.

Much of the special interest funding for the Panepinto and Grisanti primary campaigns came from the downstate Albany and New York City region. Oddly both Panepinto and Grisanti claim that this election is about Upstate vs. Downstate Albany/NYC region but they fail to reveal which side they are on.

The funding disparity will continue going into the general election making Kevin Stocker once again the clear underdog. The general election will be the testing grounds for whether a true grassroots campaign untainted by special interest money can beat NY City and Albany area lobbyists and special interests that seek to co-opt who our 60th Senate seat holder truly represents.

The voters in the 60th district should brace themselves as hundreds of thousands of special interests dollars pour into irritating and dishonest attack ads, mailers and phone calling. This investment by them is being done in an effort to elect for them either Panepinto or Grisanti in exchange for influence over how they vote much like how Bloomberg’s 2012 funding of the Grisanti victory impacted his vote on the NY SAFE Act.

Voter beware!