FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Oct. 19, 2014
CONTACT: Alex Roth, 619-228-3253San Diego – Carl DeMaio is incapable of giving straight answers to simple questions, a troubling trait that was on full display during this morning’s “Politically Speaking” on KNSD.(The show’s three segments can be viewed by clicking here, here and here.)Host Gene Cubbison asked a simple question about whether DeMaio would take a lie detector test to rebut recent allegations of sexual harassment.DeMaio wouldn’t answer the question.Rep. Scott Peters asked whether DeMaio would condemn a national Republican ad that makes the blatantly false claim that Peters used his House position to profit in the stock market. Fact-checkers have labeled this outrageous ad false and given it an “F” for truthfulness and civility.DeMaio wouldn’t answer the question.(Peters, for his part, has gone out of his way to condemn an ad from an outside group that inappropriately uses children to criticize DeMaio’s positions on education.)DeMaio was asked whether he continues to stand by the draconian education cuts that he recommended in his so-called Citizens’ Budget for California, a document he drafted while working for the right-wing Reason Foundation. His Citizens Budget called for increasing class sizes, cutting student loans and eliminating a wide range of reading, math and other programs.DeMaio wouldn’t answer the question, thus admitting he stands by these proposed cuts.In other development on the show, DeMaio continued to peddle the fiction that Peters “increased his own pay” and “spiked his pension” while on the City Council. As DeMaio knows very well – and as the media has verified – Peters declined to take a total of $140,000 of his Council salary and has donated every penny of his city pension to public libraries.What’s more, DeMaio even refused to shake Peters’ hand at the beginning of today’s show. Not an encouraging sign from a guy who claims he’ll have a productive working relationship with his colleagues if elected to Congress.“What you saw on today’s show was an astonishing level of evasion by Carl DeMaio,” said Alex Roth, communications director for the Scott Peters for Congress campaign. “And if you can’t so much as bring yourself to shake your opponent’s hand, I’m not sure how you can be trusted to have a working relationship with your colleagues if elected to Congress.”