18—The Daily Collegian Monday, Sept. 27, 1982
Cunningham: Rudy preparing personal attacks
By CHRIS NOONAN
Collegian Staff Writer
Republican Gregg L. Cunningham has notified Demo
cratic opponent Ruth Rudy that he has received reports
she is preparing personal attacks against him for the final
phase of her campaign for the 171st state House seat as an
"October surprise."
Rudy said she has received the letter but does not know
what Cunningham is talking about.
Irra letter to Rudy dated Sept. 22, Cunningham, who now
represents the 77th District in the state House, said
reliable sources close to the Rudy campaign told him that
personal attacks based on the "skillful use of some
unspecified distortions and falsehoods" would be used to
discredit his candidacy.
In his letter, Cunningham said? "I have recently re
ceived a significant number of disappointing reports from
reliable sources close to your campaign that personal
attacks are being prepared in an effort to discredit my
candidacy during the final phase of this campaign.
"We are further advised that these attacks will be based
on the skillful use of some unspecified distortions and
falsehoods.
"I would like to believe that these accounts are inaccu
rate but the credibility of our sources and the similarity of
their reports make this information difficult to dismiss as
mere rumor.
"I challenge you to conclude these final six weeks of
your campaign on a high plane and join me in sticking to
the real issues. I believe that we owe the voters that much
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and I intend to give them nothing less."
In an interview, Cunningham said: "I think the stature
of the people who have shared these confidences with me
has been the most disturbing aspect of this, and it has
made it very, very difficult to simply dismiss these
reports as rumors.
"These sources have come to me individually," Cun
ningham said. "I would assume that each assumed that
they were telling me something that I didn't know, or
something I had not been told before."
Cunningham said, "I would have no way of knowing
whether the reports which have been reaching me for the
last several weeks are accurate or inaccurate. It's my
sincere hope that they are inaccurate. I have written this
letter to Mrs. Rudy as a courtesy to alert her to the fact
that these reports are circulating and if indeed they are
rumors, I'm sure that she'll want to move to squelch those
rumors as quickly as possible.
"And if the reports are factually accurate, then I would
challenge her to keep her campaign out of the gutter and
join me in debating the real issues in the. campaign,"
Cunningham said.
Rudy said she is disappointed to hear that Cunningham
is accusing her of running a low-road campaign.
The fact that he has publicly released the letter, Rudy
said, proves that Cunningham is trying to use reverse
psychology to plant seeds of doubt in the voter's minds.
"He's trying to prove that I'm the unscrupulous one
when it is really him," Rudy said. "Up until now he's
attacked me continuously on everything except the issues.
"I think it's another act of desperation on his part,"
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Rudy said. "He's in trouble and he's using any method he
can to try to pull his campaign out of jeopardy.
"These are the identical methods he has used in the
past," Rudy said. "He has in the past done exactly what he
is accusing me of I expected him to be doing this. It
shows what an unscrupulous campaigner he is." She
would not elaborate.
Cunningham said he challenges Rudy to cite one in
stance when he has used unscrupulous methods in his
campaigns.
"All I'd like Mrs. Rudy to do.is quit fooling around with
these kinds of allegations and counter-allegations and
start debating the issues. Elevate this campaign from
some sort of a name-calling exercise to a serious debate of
the issues."
Throughout the summer and fall, Cunningham has
invited Rudy to a formal debate a request she has
repeatedly declined. Rudy has said Cunningham's insis
tence On a debate proves that his campaign is in trouble.
The candidate who feels he is behind is usually the one who
pressures for a debate, she said.
Cunningham said that the voters of the newly formed
171st District are unfamiliar with the candidates and their
positions on the issues. Rudy has defied every effort of his
campaign to get her to discuss the issues, Cunningham
said.
"Many people are suggesting that Mrs. Rudy is afraid to
debate because she is attempting to conceal her lack of
familiarity with the issues and that she cannot effectively
argue her position," Cunningham said, "or that she is
attempting to conceal the fact that she has an extremely
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liberal political philosophy that's very inconsistent with
the governmental philosophy of most of the voters in this
district."
Rudy and Cunningham also disagreed over who was
ahead in the campaign. Rudy said the polls conducted by
her organization and by groups such as Planned Paren
thood, the GOP state comknittee and the Democratic
Campaign Committee are definitely in her favor, although
she refused to release the figures.
Cunningham said Rudy knows he is ahead in the polls,
and said the fact that he is in the lead added to his concern
that the reports of planned personal attacks might be true.
"Campaigns that are in the lead don't Consider those
kinds of tactics," Cunningham said. "If Mrs. Rudy's
surveys indeed show her in the lead, I hope she didn't pay
very much for them."
Rudy said she has conducted a high-plane campaign and
welcomes Cunningham to begin to conduct his campaign
in the same manner.
"I intend to abide by , the fair campaign practices oath
that I signed in February," Rudy said. Cunningham has
not issued a public statement stating that he has also
signed the oath, which is issued from Washington, D.C.,
Rudy said.
Cunningham did not say whether he sigried any cam
paign' Oath but said he challenges Rudy to live up to the
-oath she signed.
"I in fact have pledged myself to an even stricter
standard of campaign practice than that embodied in the
so-called oath to which she has committed herself," he
said.
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