Pat Ryan changes course on Netanyahu government
Imagine you’re an incumbent running for Congress in a district that generally supports your party, and there’s a little more than three months to go before the Nov. 3 election. Now imagine that your opponent has raised less than $100,000.
If those two things are true, it doesn’t make a hell of a difference whether you have $4 million in your war chest or a paltry $3 million.
That’s the situation local congressperson Patrick Ryan, whose district encompasses part of Ulster and Dutchess counties and all of Orange County, finds himself in. He’s in a position where he can take short-term political risks.
Ryan made a major shift on an important issue on July 15. “I just voted to block sending $3.3 billion of our taxpayer dollars to Netanyahu’s government,” he announced in a post on social media.
A strong supporter of Israel for many years, Ryan has, according to his opponent, taken $792,000 in campaign contributions through the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. He visited I…