The NRCC has this new attack ad in the special election for Kirsten Gillibrand’s old House seat, accusing Dem candidate Scott Murphy of being part of the Wall Street-AIG bonus crowd — and even giving illegitimate bonuses in his own business work:
“AIG. Wall Street. Scott Murphy,” the announcer says. Which brings us a big irony in this race — that the Republican is running a populist campaign, and accusing the Democrat of being a Wall Street fat cat. If it works, the GOP will be using this theme for some time to come.
The claim itself was previously fact-checked by the Albany Times-Union, who didn’t have a high opinion of it. Murphy did award $1.2 million in bonuses to executives at a technology company, in a year when they were $1.6 million in the red — but it was at a time when there was definite upward progress going on, with almost three times the net sales from two years earlier. And furthermore, it’s not uncommon for tech companies to run losses for years before making it into the black.
