OH-16: Freedom's Watch Smears Boccieri (D) Over Gas Tax Schuring (R) Voted to Increase

Freedom's Watch, the well-funded right-wing advocacy group, is using robocalls to attack challengers State Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-Price Hill) in OH-01 and State Sen. John Boccieri (D-Alliance) in OH-16. It's a misleading and spurious attack as to both, but it's particularly heinous as to Boccieri because his opponent State Sen. Kirk Schuring (R-North Canton) actually voted to increase state gas taxes, while Boccieri voted against increasing them.

The gist of the call, courtesy of PolitickerOH.com:

Hi, this is an emergency gas price alert from Freedom's Watch. Did you know Ohio gas taxes add more than 28 cents to every gallon of gas? 28 cents! What is John Boccieri doing to address the issue? Nothing. If we can't depend on John Boccieri to stand up for us today, when can we count on him?

Boccieri responds today with a letter that unmasks the robocall as a false and unfair smear:

[Freedom's Watch is] sending phone messages to local voters attacking me for the Ohio state gas tax that my opponent, Kirk Schuring, voted to increase in 2003. I voted against it.

Schuring voted for Governor Taft’s transportation bill, which imposed $580 million in new taxes on Ohio families. Because of him, families in our state will pay more than a quarter of a billion dollars in extra gas taxes this year alone.

Why is Freedom’s Watch telling people to call me about a gas tax I opposed? Shouldn’t they be asking voters to call Kirk Schuring instead? And why are big-money Washington groups dumping cookie-cutter attacks on our district while Schuring himself hasn't said a word about his energy plans?

Clearly, Freedom's Watch doesn't actually care about your high fuel costs. They're just coming in to help out one of George Bush's biggest backers in Ohio – but they didn't do their homework, and now this stunt will backfire. I applaud the Canton Repository for repudiating third party attacks like this one. And I thank Freedom's Watch for the opportunity they've provided to talk with constituents about my opposition to the gas tax increase. Now its time for Senator Schuring to explain his vote to raise the gas tax.

Gas tax gimmicks won’t ease our pain at the pump. I’ve been talking about serious, substantive energy solutions for weeks. All we’ve heard from Kirk Schuring is silence – while Washington hired guns do his negative campaigning for him. ...

Today, I am challenging Kirk Schuring to stop hiding behind third parties and agree to a public debate with me about our energy future – one on one, in a neutral forum, before the voters of our community.

Boccieri then calls on supporters to record the robocall and contact his campaign at 330-754-0534, write a letter to a local newspaper setting the record straight about Schuring’s gas tax hike and challenging Schuring to publicly debate Boccieri on energy issues, and call Schuring at 330-455-9199 and ask him why he voted to raise your gas taxes.

UPDATE: Bryan Collinsworth, Boccieri's communications director, wrote me to say that they Boccieri's campaign staff delivered the above debate challenge to Schuring's campaign manager this morning, and for doing so Schuring's campaign has issued a press release calling for Boccieri's staffers to be fired. More details on this when I can get them.