After the July 18 New York Times editorial "John Faso Is Race-Baiting His Opponent," the Kinderhook-based first-term Republican Congressperson responded with a letter to the editor. In the July 20 response, Faso says it was unfair for the Times to write that Faso's opponent, Antonio Delgado, is “unfit for office because he had a career as a rapper” because "I never said that. I did say that he is obligated to explain what he meant by the songs he wrote, which denigrated our nation and the free enterprise system, and often glorified pornography and drug use," Faso wrote. The Times editorial says Faso is counting on constituents in New York’s 19th Congressional District to be bigots because of several recent statements, not just the attacks on Delgado's over-a-decade-old hip hop album. Faso favors stricter standards for food stamp recipients, because, he said, “virtually every drug dealer they arrest has got a food stamp card in his pocket” and he is also running advertisements promising to “keep MS-13 out of New York,” with photos of ominous-looking, tattooed Latino men. "Faso seems to feel more comfortable exploiting painful racial divisions than talking about his votes in Congress," the Times editorial said. "Delgado also uses many phrases derogatory to women and law enforcement. One can only imagine what your editorial board would say about me had I uttered the same words as my opponent has," Faso wrote in the letter to the editor. "The best you can say for John is that's he's becoming a fellow traveler in modern racial and cultural divisiveness," said Richard Brodsky, a former state Assemblymember, said in the Albany Times Union.