Nov 2, 2009

County Executive Race

WRITTEN BY SCOTT ARMSTRONG

If you are looking for a political contest that pits a crude political animal against a person of good intention the contest for Lehigh County executive is for you. Don Cunningham the incumbent, a career politician, is seeking re-election with a campaign based on half truths, distortions and exaggerations. All this is delivered to the voters through a completely phony Bethlehem Gomer Pyle persona. Running against Don is Scott Ott, a man of many talents who until recently never thought of running for public office. Scott, a family man and a person of deep faith feels the time is right for a candidacy that proclaims individual liberty over continued government expansion. To concentrate on the campaign Mr. Ott left his job as the director of a church affiliated camp. Apparently, as part of a severance package, his former employer allows Scott andhis family to remain in the house he was renting from the church rent free. Now Don Cunningham has decided to label Scott's family's living arrangement a violation of non-profit tax codes and has asked the IRS to investigate. IRS scrutiny can make even an honest person or institution's life a nightmare. This is an agency where one must prove innocence and that effort can take time and money.
Don Cunningham must think he is so clever, but in fact this act has revealed him as a man so consumed with himself that he seeks an IRS investigation into a church merely because they allow his election opponent to stay in a building they own.
There are plenty of unsavory facts about Don's life that have remained out of public purview. Scott Ott has never attacked Mr. Cunningham's personally or involved his family life in the campaign. That is the mark of his decency. Conversely, Don Cunningham's actions speak for themselves. By this action he has proven himself unworthy of any public office.

Scott Armstrong

11 comments:

  1. Scott,
    Halloween is the time for skeletons to come out of their closets, if they haven't escaped by now, it is too late to make a difference.
    I do not question that Scott is a good man. He believes in something, that is more than many of us can say.
    But the election is about who can better do the job, not who is the meanest campaigner.
    Whining about political dirty tricks makes your man look even lamer. There is a reason we have a separation of church and state, but that is another issue altogether.

    My point is, Scott Ott has not shown me one thing that makes me sit up and say, "He will do the Executive job better!"

    And when you are running against an incumbent, that is what it is all about.

    I agree that these acts of recent days make Don Cunningham's shine a bit dimmer, but it is too little too late.

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  2. I'm not sure asking for an IRS investigation is out of line here. If Ott's campaign is dependent on these free living arrangements, then that would indeed raise some red flags.

    I have no reason to doubt Ott's personal faith and commitment to family, but he's trying to enter public life. What did he expect?

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  3. What does unsavory mean, isn't that something to do with food?

    Allentown Democrat Voter

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  4. I think I will vote for the separation of church and state.

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  5. Chris,

    The fact that you also would gloss over turning a church into the IRS for reasons of political expediency serves to reveals the prevalent amoral attitude of the Democrat Party.

    Scott Armstrong

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  6. What happened with Mr. Ott's housing? We never saw the letter.
    Is there some truth to the IRS
    claim? Thank you.

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  7. Chris,
    Would you tell us what happened with thaat IRS letter we're hearing about? Somehow we missed this whole thing. Doesn't Scott have a job? What happened to his house?

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  8. First two responses are typical of the drones we have left living in Allentown today. Is it any wonder that this once wonderful city's elected leaders in the 21st century are second rate, unethical, possessed of no 'vision', lying, and incompetent. With voters such as these two examples (which I'm afraid is typical today) having such obviously low IQs, God help us.

    Anon.

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  9. Chris Casey has a point :

    From what I always understood about the fundamental mechanics of elections, it is the challenger who traditionally must find a way to show the electorate he/she will be better than incumbent.

    Did Ott do that? I don't know but CC point is the same either way.

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  10. Chris Casey here- blogger won't let me sign in.

    I would like to point out to Mr. Armstrong that I am a registered Independent. Go down to LC Board of elections and check, I am not a "demodrone" as Mr. Armstrong would categorize me.

    I did not gloss over the IRS thing, I merely stayed on topic.

    But now that Mr. armstrong has brought that item to the table, let us address it.

    I don't care about Scott Ott's family living quarters, all I care about is can ge do the job. I say NO.

    But we do have laws in this country, and it is a valid question that strikes to Mr. Ott's moral code. He has repeatedly attacked Mr. Cunningham as disingenuous and called him less than flattering titles.

    But that is okay necause he is a man of God.

    So Cunningham 's people called him on his hypocrisy.

    Just one more example of why Scott Ott is in over his head.

    Politics is a full contact sport, and Scott just got blindsided while covering a punt return. He stepped on the field, and wasn't smart enough to put in a mouthpiece or wear a jock strap.

    Tonight his lifeless political body will be carried off the field, after it has been trampled by Don cunningham and his downfield blockers.

    Scott Ott against Don Cunningham has been like ST Swithin's little sisters of Charity College playing against Florida. Dovision 1A playing against Division 6 triple AAA.

    It's been ugly, but it has been funny

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  11. And sometimes St. swithin's scares the hell out of Florida.

    Nobody saw this race as that close. just goes to show that Dems might have tried to reach a bit too far, and voters decided to pull them back, at least countywide.

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