After Hurricane Katrina, Senator Rick Santorum cancelled much of his political fundraising efforts to avoid competition with hurricane recovery donation efforts, including a fundraiser featuring Vice President Cheney. Considering he's in a tough race in 2006, this gesture should be applauded...

Santorum's opponent, Bob Casey Jr., however, went ahead with his fundraising efforts. Both Santorum and Casey were both scheduled to hold fundraising events in Houston September 19th. Santorum cancelled his event... Casey did not. Casey's campaign said they wouldn't cancel any events because none were taking place in the "impacted" areas.

Texas was not "impacted" by the hurricanes?

I guess campaigning in the aftermath of Katrina worked out for Casey... His campaign made $18,000...

On the same day Sen. Rick Santorum canceled a fund-raising trip to Texas because of Hurricane Katrina, his leading Democratic opponent collected $18,000 in Austin and met with prospective donors in Houston.

Robert P. Casey Jr. traveled to Texas Sept. 19, a detail the Democrat's campaign did not disclose when asked last month whether he planned to raise money outside the state before close of the quarterly fund-raising period on Sept. 30.

"The vast majority of our fund-raising is taking place in Pennsylvania and in areas not affected by the floods," said Jay Reiff, Casey's campaign manager, in a Sept. 18 Inquirer story. "We are certainly not doing any fund-raising in the areas impacted."

Reiff said yesterday that the campaign did not view Texas as an impacted area, and never found it necessary to curtail political activity in the first place…

To make this worse, Casey exploited Hurricane Katrina for campaign cash. In a campaign email on September 7th, Casey criticized Santorum over remarks regarding Katrina, and in that same email asked for donations.

The Santorum campaign took issue with the Casey e-mail because it included the link "Contribute to Bob's Campaign."

"Bobby Casey has just reached a new low in politics by trying to raise money off the misfortunes of the people of Louisiana," said John Brabender, Santorum's media consultant. "He is now the undisputed negative campaigner of the world."

Reiff said that the fund-raising link is attached to every e-mail and that yesterday's e-mail was not meant as a fund-raising appeal.

The DSCC also tried to raise money by exploiting Katrina. Once they were confronted about it they pledged to donate the money to charity.

Will Bob Casey Jr. join his Democrat friends in the Senate in donating his contributions to charity?

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