The McAuliffe campaign is seizing on a series of blog posts by a payday-lending trade group to claim it’s being targeted by the industry for its opposition to predatory lending.
Steven Schlein, a spokesman for the Community Financial Services Association of America who blogs as the “payday pundit,” has written 11 entries tarring Terry McAuliffe with descriptions like “pandering demagogue” and a “dangerous man.”
The former Democratic National Committee chairman, who has made driving payday lenders out of Virginia a pillar of his gubernatorial campaign, trumpeted the criticism on Wednesday as evidence that his “tough stand on eliminating predatory lending in Virginia draws the ire of payday lenders.”
But the blog, which gets between 500 and 1,000 hits a day, hardly constitutes a full-scale assault by the industry, Schlein argues.
“To say I’m targeting him is crazy,” he said. “He’s a multimillionaire, well-funded politician who’s trying to do something to make him look like he’s fighting for the little guy.
“I think they’re just trying to get reporters like you to call and make himself into a martyr. … ‘Oh some blogger said something bad about me, feel sorry for me,’ ” Schlein added. “He’s being silly; this is all politics.”
All three Democrats seeking their party’s nomination for governor have promised to ban the short-term, high-interest loans, which are criticized as traps for the poor and financially illiterate.
But to be sure, McAuliffe has been driving the issue, and has highlighted votes in 2002 by both of his opponents — former Del. Brian Moran and state Sen. Creigh Deeds — that legalized payday lending in Virginia. McAuliffe has never held elected office.
With less than a week until the Tuesday primary, McAuliffe is especially using the issue to appeal to working-class and African-American voters in Hampton Roads and Richmond.
A McAuliffe spokeswoman could not be reached Wednesday.
