"Accessible, Out there talking to people" I interview Ann Marie Buerkle NY-24

The last time I inter­viewed Ann Marie Buerkle on Cam­era she was a can­di­date for con­gress, how­ever her title of Con­gress­woman has not damp­ened her will­ing­ness to talk not even to a Radio Talk Show host and blog­ger from out of state.

Unfor­tu­nately the Acoustics of the area were HOR­RI­BLE and we didn’t have time to re-​shoot as she had to dash to another event so I will pro­vide a tran­script of the inter­view belowo:

DaT­e­chGuy: I’m here with Con­greswoman Ann Marie Buerkle. Ann Maire two years ago myself and another fel­low in a hat Stacy McCain came to Syra­cuse, you were in front of a build­ing that was being rented, you were talk­ing about how the Syra­cuse polls had you down 11 pts. You ended up win­ning that race, now it’s two years later as the incum­bent, much dif­fer­ent feel I imagine?

Con­gress­woman Ann Marie Buerkle (R-​NY-​24) A Much dif­fer­ent feel because now we have a record, a record I’m very proud of.

DTG: Now that’s some­thing I’ve noticed when I“ve talked to peo­ple. I inter­viewed quite a few peo­ple before this event and the word that I hear a lot about you is: ‘I talked to Ann Mare and she said’, ‘I’ve talked to Ann Marie and she said.’ so seem to be a rather acces­si­ble congresswoman.

AMB: We have We’ve had over 40 town hall meet­ings, we had over 60 mobile town hall units, we’ve been out in the com­mu­nity for hun­dreds of meet­ings and that’s what we’ve done we’ve embed­ded our­selves in the com­mu­nity and we have really been the voice that update New York hasn’t had in a long time.

DTG:Now what’s inter­est­ing is I remem­ber two years ago your oppo­nent [Con­gress­man] Dan Maf­fei was not talk­ing about his record and spend­ing his time attack­ing you. It’s two years later, and he’s still not talk­ing about his record and he’s still attack­ing you, and I don’t see how he thinks that strat­egy is going to work so well two years later when it didn’t work before?

AMB:Dan Maf­fei should be ashamed of him­self and I don’t know how he has the moxie to go out and ask the peo­ple for their vote after he has turned down four of these town hall debates, that he’s turned down major net­work debates, one with the local news­pa­per. He is afraid to reflect on his record, he is afraid to take respon­si­bil­ity for what he has voted for. All he wants to do is as you said: Attack attack attack rather than look­ing at what he voted for when he was in congress.

DTG:Now this is a slightly odd ques­tion, of course you’re an incum­bent now. In terms of how you pre­sent­ing your­self, in terms of how peo­ple are react­ing to you. What’s the main dif­fer­ence you see two years later from the pub­lic when you’re talk­ing to them?

AMB: Well when I ran I promised the peo­ple here of upstate New York that I would be their voice in Wash­ing­ton. And what we’ve done in the last two years, I have been their voice I have kept that promise we’ve been acces­si­ble, we’ve been respon­si­ble we’ve been inde­pen­dent of either party, we’ve done our best for the dis­trict. And that a promise made two years ago and a promise kept. We’re very proud of our record.

DTG:And what’s on the itin­er­ary for the next ten days or so?

AMB: Ahem lots of, we actu­ally have a cou­ple of debates left, ah, we have lots of meet­ings with dif­fer­ent orga­ni­za­tions planned, talk to the peo­ple it’s not unlike what we’ve done for the last 22 months, acces­si­ble, out there, talk­ing to people.

DTG:And I’ve gotta ask this one last ques­tion. One thing, I’ve been to sev­eral dis­tricts in NY and CT and this ridicu­lous “War on Women” attack has been every­where, doesn’t mat­ter if the can­di­date is a man or woman, doesn’t mat­ter what dis­trict, every­where I go, in Mass­a­chu­setts, in my own dis­trict, we see this. Can, I don’t under­stand how this has become the debate when the econ­omy is what every­one is wor­ry­ing about. Is this desperation?

AMB:It is des­per­a­tion, it’s dis­tor­tion it’s dis­trac­tion it’s a national cam­paign in which Dan Maf­fei has par­tic­i­pated. He doesn’t want us to look at his record. He doesn’t even want to remem­ber that he was a con­gress­man. He wants to pre­tend and make that record go away. He should be ashamed of him­self. He’s hid­ing behind the skirts of the vic­tims of rape. He’s hid­ing behind the skirts of vic­tims of domes­tic vio­lence and he demeans women by think­ing that the only thing we care about is the Fed­eral gov­ern­ment hand­ing out free con­tra­cep­tion. The Amer­i­can women are con­cerned about who’s going to make their health­care deci­sions, about jobs about the econ­omy, about jobs about the price of gaso­line at the pump, we care about far broader and more impor­tant issues and Dan Maf­fei really insults women with this whole cam­paign that he is running

DTG: Con­gress­woman Ann Marie Buerkle 24^th dis­trict, Thank you very much for your time.

Now think about this, in NY-​24 we have Demo­c­rat Dan Maf­fei a can­di­date who is run­ning away from his record, run­ning away from the peo­ple and run­ning away from his past (Thus the Nick­name Dan “Col Run­away” Maf­fei or we have Ann Marie Buerkle who make it a point to stay acces­si­ble and account­able to the peo­ple in her dis­trict. Is that a choice at all? It is it REALLY?

Re-​Elect Ann Marie Buerkle to Con­gress in NY 24

Because “Acces­si­ble out there, talk­ing to peo­ple” is what a mem­ber of con­gress should be

Ann Marie was the hard­est hit of the 2010 fresh­man class in terms of redis­trict­ing and can use all the help she can get, kick into her cam­paign here and help return the best con­ser­v­a­tive in the North­east to congress.