 In various speeches throughout the fall campaign, Congressman James, as well as state Senator G. Robert Watkins, attacked Clark mercilessly, often citing his membership in the liberal group, Americans for Democratic Action.In one speech in October, both officeholders said that Clark's "membership in the ADA alone is enough to disqualify Joe Clark from sitting in Jim Duff's chair in the U.S. Senate" and that the ADA had provided unspecified "aid and comfort to the cause of international communism".It was clear that even though McCarthyism had been renounced in Congress, the same tactics were alive and well in Delaware County in 1956.