Published: August 10, 2008 12:19 am      

POLITICAL NOTEBOOK: Looking for an answer in Big Oil holdings

LOCKPORT — If at first you don’t succeed, and try again, you may regret it.

The Jon Powers camp lobbed a second grenade at opponent Jack Davis over his oil stock holdings in late July.

The first volley, a June 26 press release seizing on Davis’ disclosure that he owns oil and energy stocks valued at about $35 million, asserted a link between Davis, “Big Oil” and Average Joe’s pain at the gas pumps.

How, the release asked, can voters trust Davis to know their pain when he made up to $288,000 on those energy stocks in 2007?

Despite the release’s pairing of a Big Oil diatribe with Powers’ version of best U.S. energy policy — replete with favors for alternative energy and tough love for oil — the missive wasn’t widely repeated by press in the region.

Powers went after Davis again July 31, when his camp issued a statement blasting Exxon’s record-breaking second quarter profits — and linking Davis with the presumable evil.

“The fact that Jack Davis is bankrolling his campaign with money he made from Exxon shows how out of touch he is with everyday Western New Yorkers,” Powers’ campaign manager, John Gerken, said.

Davis barely acknowledged the first volley, other than to say his wealth is no source of shame. His oil holdings represent a “modest” portion of his portfolio, he added; the bulk comes from the profitability of I Squared Element, the manufacturing company that he, a trained engineer, founded in his garage in 1964.

Powers’ second lob got a bigger rise out of its target. Last week, the Davis camp released an “analysis” of Powers’ self-reported financials showing the mutual funds he’s invested in also are linked with Big Oil — and posing pointed questions about Powers’ honesty.

Powers is invested in the Schwab 1000 Index Fund, two of whose Top Five holdings Davis says are Exxon Mobil and Chevron; the William Blair International Growth Fund that backs oil, gas and coal mining; the William Blair Small Cap Growth Fund that manages shares in the same; and Fidelity Capital & Income Fund, whose holdings include dozens of oil and gas companies. Powers has IRA holdings in Global Industries LLC, which is invested in offshore oil and gas drilling.

“Mr. Powers deliberately exaggerates Mr. Davis’ oil holdings, conceals his own and also fails to disclose that he has accepted campaign contributions from oil and energy lobbyists,” Davis’ campaing manager Luke Vaughn said. “To attack (Davis’ oil returns) is simply childish and flies in the face of reality.”

The Powers camp has carried on plenty, since Davis threw down for a third run at U.S. Rep. Tom Reynolds’ soon-to-be-vacated House seat, about the challenges of competing with a self-financed

millionaire.

The complaint persists despite the fact Powers has the endorsement of all seven county Democratic committees in the 26th District, a bevy of labor union endorsements and demonstrated fundraising ability; in mid July he reported having raised about $870,000 since launching his campaign in 2007, $272,000 of it in the second quarter of this year alone.

Of the Davis camp’s observation that Powers also profits personally from Big Oil, Powers’ spokeswoman, Victoria Dillon, professes astonishment that the two should be compared.

Within Powers’ mutual fund holdings there “might be some oil tucked into the Top 100,” she says, “but I truly don’t think it’s the same thing. The scale (of profit) is so, so drastically different. For them to nitpick this one little thing ... it’s silly.”

What’s the moral difference between a little profit off oil and a lot?

Despite repeated requests, Dillon declined to put Powers on the phone this week to speak for himself.

Instead, she took the question exactly as it’s asked above and sent his answer by e-mail. It is:

“Jon Powers owns stock in a mutual fund, like many Americans, while Jack Davis owns up to $35 million in Big Oil and energy stock and made more than $280,000 last year off of high gas prices. This is simply a difference in priorities, Jack Davis profits off of high gas prices while Jon Powers owns a mutual fund,” said John Gerken, Campaign Manager for Powers for Congress.