Bennett Camp Slams Congressman Dent For Going to D.C.

Sam Bennett's campaign sent me a news release today that starts like this, "Congressman Charles Dent is scheduled to go to the House floor today to wrap up the Republican’s 5th week of Washington gimmicks, claiming to debate energy policy, according to his Express-Times. The reality: Dent is debating himself. The House isn’t in session and the floor is empty."

OK. I get it. Dent is being tagged for going to the nation's capitol to do his job instead of sticking around so we cab see who went to the Allentown Fair the most. That's fine, but what's up with that first sentence?

"[A]ccording to his Express-Times?"

So what the hell is the Bennett camp saying? Does Charlie Dent own The Express Times? Does the Express Times claim that Dent is in D.C. this week? I scoured the paper, and find nothing to corroborate Bennett's claim. The paper does, however, have some very well-written profiles of both Charlie Dent (by Jessica Coomes) and Sam Bennett (by Lynn Olanoff).

Campaign manager Kathryn Seck, who is actually on loan from D.C. herself, seems to know what Charlie is really doing - meeting with Evil Big Oil. “Empty chamber, empty rhetoric, all while working Pennsylvania families’ gas tanks are on empty. But Dent’s campaign coffers aren’t empty since he’s receives over $75,000 from Big Oil. Dent continues to take tens of thousands of dollars from Big Oil and give them billions in tax breaks. Dent has chosen to play tired old Washington games instead of agreeing to a real debate on energy policy here in the Lehigh Valley.”

According to the Bennett camp, Dent is slinking around at Big Lobbyist fundraisers, too.

Dent's camp declined to respond to this missive.

In an interview last month, Dent had this response to the Big Oil charge: "[S]he pulls her numbers wherever she pulls them from, but she is including local people. It's great to know that Siobhan Bennett believes that people who work in local energy companies are part of Big Oil. It's fascinating to know that she thinks what they do is dirty, that what they do is dishonorable. You know, she wrote in a recent op-ed that her grandfather was in the oil business. My late grandfather, who lived at 520 N 11th Street in Allentown, worked for over forty years of his life at UGI Company and Union Gas. He had an 8th grade education. He was proud of what he did. He would be sickened to know that people like my opponent think that what he did for a living was somehow dishonorable. He was proud that he was helping provide natural gas to help power people's businesses and homes. He thought that was honorable work and my opponent clearly thinks that people who work in the energy sector are dishonorable."