Golden and Gounardes trade barbs but don't convey their ideas very well

The Andrew Gounardes for New York State Senate campaign recently posted a release that proclaimed, “Marty Golden Can't Seem To Get Any Women's Issue Right.”

Does that broad charge against the GOP incumbent stand up against his record?  It’s kinda tough to tell. Why can’t these candidates join in a clear debate?

The internals of the Gounardes’ release specifically dealt with several “Women’s” bills, upon which State Senator Golden had taken a position on the record or remained remote and silent.

The first item dealt with in the Gounardes release was something called the “Women’s Workforce Bill.” It had been reported previously in the local press that State Senator Golden had wrongly claimed to have “co-sponsored” the “Woman’s Workforce Bill” in a piece of political literature that had been mailed by Golden’s campaign to certain Golden constituents. According to Colin Campbell’s post on “Politicker”, that mistake was quickly and readily admitted by a spokesman for the State Senator, who responded to the questions from that well known city-wide reporter by saying, “...it was a simple error, and not exactly a big deal...”

The rest of the Gounardes’ campaign’s release listed several woman’s pay bills that were voted against and/or otherwise opposed or ignored by Golden.  These “Women’s” bills included the following: the 2011 New York Fair Pay Act [S6429A-2011]; Paid Family Leave [S1252-2011]; Discrimination in Employment [S3814-2011]; and a Business Tax-Credit for Employer-Provided Day Care [S1845-2011]. To be fair, the Golden mailer that made the erroneous claim of his co-sponsorship of the “Women’s Workforce Bill” clearly implied that he would be supporting other equal pay legislation in the future.

Unfortunately, instead of clarifying the differences of the positions of these competing candidates, both the Golden and the Gounardes campaigns have been more bluster and blather than clarity and light on those “Women’s” issues related to gender equality with respect to job availability, pay, other family benefits and a woman-friendly work environment.

On another flap back in July on a different kind of “Women’s” issue,  State Senator Martin Golden was reported to have said, “... [the Democrats and their candidate Gounardes] can keep focusing on that for as long as they want. I hope they spend a whole lot of time on it because people want to hear about jobs, they want to hear about economic development, they want to hear about the future of this great city and state, they want to hear about education, they want to hear about transportation” (In post “Golden says he hopes Democrats keep talking about ‘feminine presence’ ” by AZI PAYBARAH on 7/23/12 at “This Is How New York Works – Capital”). That remark by Golden would make it look like he doesn’t take such issues seriously and would be just as happy doing a “rope a dope” with Gounardes on “Women’s” matters.  Golden’s recent “co-sponsor of the ‘Women’s Workforce Bill’” mailer shows that Golden’s July statement was just a head fake before a dive into the legislative weeds on votes and sponsorship of “Women’s” legislation. Interestingly, the Gounardes release also stated that the Golden campaign had made false claims regarding transportation that were similar to the false claims in Golden’s “co-sponsor of the ‘Women’s Workforce Bill’” mailer.

Possibly, these guys can do a better job clarifying their relative positions when they get into their face to face debate next week.