WATERTOWN, New York (WWNY) – Ronald Reagan famous declared an ‘11th commandment of politics’ – Thou shall not speak ill of thy fellow Republican.
Forget that.
In the race for the new 24th congressional district seat, which will represent Watertown and much of Jefferson County, Republicans Mario Fratto and Claudia Tenney are going at it.
Fratto calls Tenney a ‘tourist,’ just looking for an easy district in which to stay in congress.
Tenney says Fratto just wants the attention.
Both candidates put their conservative credentials front and center. Fratto talks about the ‘radical left,’ and says ‘We have been sold out for corporate interests by career politicians.” Tenney has the endorsement of former President Trump, and calls for impeaching President Biden.
Republican voters in the new 24th – which stretches from Jefferson County down through the middle of the state and out to western New York – will pick between Fratto and Tenney in a primary August 23.
The winner will face Democrat Steven Holden, who lives in the suburbs of Syracuse, in the November election.
There is also potentially a third Republican in the race, John Murtari of Lyons, in Wayne County, who could not be reached for comment this week.
Tenney is already in congress, representing a district (NY-22) which takes in Utica and Binghamton, and comes close to the north country by including part of Oswego County.
Fratto says Tenney wants to move to the new 24th because it’s a safer Republican district.
“Everybody knows this is about getting a seat, and it’s not about representing the people. And any time you’re doing something like that, I don’t think your head is in the right place. Your heart’s definitely not in the right place. And I think the people are gonna see through it,” Fratto told 7 News this week.
Fratto is a businessman from the Finger Lakes region, which is in the new 24th, and says “I think the people here deserve local representation. We’ve never had it, and we have an opportunity for it, and this isn’t just something that is a commodity you can buy and sell.”
Tenney wasn’t having it, when 7 News spoke with her.
“The reason why he’s doing this is because Mario wants to be a celebrity. He’s not interested in leadership or representing out communities,” Tenney said.
She also said that before they were running against each other, “I got a great endorsement from Mario Fratto himself, who described meeting me at a recent event in Yates County as a complete honor and basically begged me to take a picture with him, for which he put on a wonderful tweet saying ‘It’s such an honor meeting Claudia Tenney. She is an inspiration and the embodiment of the America First movement.’ ‘
“He asked me if I could get President Trump’s endorsement for him and if I would endorse him over Chris Jacobs” who was then running against Fratto.
Fratto acknowledges getting a picture with Tenney, but says most of the rest isn’t true.
“I said some nice things about her because I met her at a fund-raiser,” Fratto said.
“The fact that she wants to personally attack me is sad.”
In a statement, Fratto attacked Tenney as having a liberal voting record on issues ranging from red flag laws to taxpayer funding for sex changes in the military to supporting aid to Ukraine.
“I looked at her record, and it’s atrocious, to be honest. I can’t imagine the people here would go for some of those votes,” Fratto said.
Tenney said Fratto is misrepresenting her record.
“I think Mario doesn’t really understand what ‘America First’ means. I think he thinks it’s isolationism. He’s been kind of clinging to these real far right, what I call click bait people on Twitter,” she said.
“I am always a strong, compassionate, courageous advocate for our conservative values. But I also know that in the end, we have to have some compromises, even sometimes two or three steps forward, one step back to make sure we can find common ground so that we can actually govern and lead,” she said.
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