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Photo: Lori Van Buren, Albany Times Union
Nancy Eckert of Ravena, left, stands will other protestors outside a fundraiser for John Faso and Elise Stefanik at the Fort Orange Club on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren/Times Union)
Nancy Eckert of Ravena, left, stands will other protestors outside a fundraiser for John Faso and Elise Stefanik at the Fort Orange Club on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren/Times Union)
Photo: Lori Van Buren, Albany Times Union
Barbara Dowdell of Halfmoon stands will other protestors outside a fundraiser for John Faso and Elise Stefanik at the Fort Orange Club on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren/Times Union)
Barbara Dowdell of Halfmoon stands will other protestors outside a fundraiser for John Faso and Elise Stefanik at the Fort Orange Club on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren/Times Union)
Photo: Lori Van Buren, Albany Times Union
People show up to protest a fundraiser for John Faso and Elise Stefanik at the Fort Orange Club on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren/Times Union)
People show up to protest a fundraiser for John Faso and Elise Stefanik at the Fort Orange Club on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren/Times Union)
Photo: Lori Van Buren, Albany Times Union
Nancy Eckert of Ravena, left, stands will other protestors outside a fundraiser for John Faso and Elise Stefanik at the Fort Orange Club on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren/Times Union)
Nancy Eckert of Ravena, left, stands will other protestors outside a fundraiser for John Faso and Elise Stefanik at the Fort Orange Club on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren/Times Union)
Photo: Lori Van Buren, Albany Times Union
People show up to protest a fundraiser for John Faso and Elise Stefanik at the Fort Orange Club on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren/Times Union)
People show up to protest a fundraiser for John Faso and Elise Stefanik at the Fort Orange Club on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren/Times Union)
Photo: Lori Van Buren, Albany Times Union
People show up to protest a fundraiser for John Faso and Elise Stefanik at the Fort Orange Club on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren/Times Union)
People show up to protest a fundraiser for John Faso and Elise Stefanik at the Fort Orange Club on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren/Times Union)
Photo: Lori Van Buren, Albany Times Union
People show up to protest a fundraiser for John Faso and Elise Stefanik at the Fort Orange Club on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren/Times Union)
People show up to protest a fundraiser for John Faso and Elise Stefanik at the Fort Orange Club on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren/Times Union)
Photo: Lori Van Buren, Albany Times Union
People show up to protest a fundraiser for John Faso and Elise Stefanik at the Fort Orange Club on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren/Times Union)
People show up to protest a fundraiser for John Faso and Elise Stefanik at the Fort Orange Club on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren/Times Union)
Photo: Lori Van Buren, Albany Times Union
People show up to protest a fundraiser for John Faso and Elise Stefanik at the Fort Orange Club on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren/Times Union)
People show up to protest a fundraiser for John Faso and Elise Stefanik at the Fort Orange Club on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren/Times Union)
Photo: Lori Van Buren, Albany Times Union
People show up to protest a fundraiser for John Faso and Elise Stefanik at the Fort Orange Club on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren/Times Union)
People show up to protest a fundraiser for John Faso and Elise Stefanik at the Fort Orange Club on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren/Times Union)
Photo: Lori Van Buren, Albany Times Union
People show up to protest a fundraiser for John Faso and Elise Stefanik at the Fort Orange Club on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren/Times Union)
People show up to protest a fundraiser for John Faso and Elise Stefanik at the Fort Orange Club on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren/Times Union)
Photo: Lori Van Buren, Albany Times Union
NY-19 Democrat wrote he 'encouraged' signing NRA as client
In the Democratic primary to take on Rep. John Faso of Kinderhook, for a seat that is one of the party's top targets this November, the candidates have made gun-control legislation a major issue in the wake of the Parkland school shooting.
Among the vocal candidates on the issue is Democrat Brian Flynn, a businessman who criticized Faso for saying his "prayers" were with the Parkland victims after the tragedy. Flynn is calling for "enhanced background checks" and policies making it much more difficult for civilians "to get their hands on these weapons of war."
In a 2004 essay written by Flynn in the Harvard Business Review, however, he states that while serving as president of a Manhattan-based public relations firm called RLM, he encouraged staff to try to sign the National Rifle Association (NRA) as a client. The NRA is an organization staunchly opposed by gun-control advocates due to the political power it exerts in stopping gun-control measures.
"When clients questioned RLM's political orientation, we told them: 'You hire us for our communications skills, not our politics, so our personal positions are of little consequence,'" Flynn wrote in the 2004 essay. "That said, we also worked hard to recruit clients from across the political spectrum. While our Washington, D.C., office was largely liberal, we had quite a few Republican employees and clients in Los Angeles, and I encouraged the staff to pursue a contract with the NRA to help balance our work with a gun-control group."
The general theme of Flynn's essay was that he liked to encourage office debate about politics, but that clients could be sensitive about such matters. In the essay, Flynn was responding to a hypothetical situation about politics in the workplace that had been raised by the Harvard Business Review.
In an email to the Times Union, Flynn said that his employees at RLM had never actually tried to sign the NRA as a client, and that the conversation with an employee about the situation was "hypothetical."
"At the time the company for whom I worked, RLM, had almost exclusively left leaning, liberal clients – including a gun control advocacy group called The Center to Prevent Youth Violence. An employee – who was both a Republican and a gun owner – came to me with concerns that the company's client portfolio was 'politically' imbalanced and too far to the left – a reflection of my own personal politics and that of many of our co-workers," Flynn said via email. "This was in direct contrast to the company's ethos as cited in the HBR article you referenced. When clients questioned RLM's political orientation, we told them: 'You hire us for our communications skills, not our politics, so our personal positions are of little consequence.'"
"The employee went on to to hypothetically ask what would happen if he pursued an organization like the NRA as a client? My response to him was also cited in the same article, 'I encouraged [my] staff to pursue a contract with the NRA to help balance our work with a gun-control group.' This was simply my assurance that I was honoring RLM's policies and best practices referenced in the previous paragraph."
"For the record, we did not do business with the NRA or the gun lobby. To be clear, as a political candidate or representative, I would never take money from the NRA or any group that advocates against reasonable gun protections"
Seven Democrats including Flynn are running for the opportunity to take on Faso, who was first elected in 2016.
As of the end of last year, Flynn was among the money leaders in the Democratic primary, reporting $980,000 in cash on hand. Flynn's campaign has been buoyed by a $650,000 personal loan that he gave to his campaign.