HOW TO RUN A NASTY CAMPAIGN
By David Zahniser
LA Weekly, CA
June 15 2006
Last week’s primary election left voters with a particularly bitter
aftertaste, and not just because of the highly toxic gubernatorial
campaign. In legislative contests across Southern California, voters
looked in their mailboxes just days before the election and found
some of the most unpleasant accusations of the campaign.
One campaign committee implied that state Assembly candidate Paul
Krekorian, an Armenian who lives in Burbank, had ties to Armenian
terrorists. A second, more shadowy group produced a viscerally
unflattering image of Assemblywoman Judy Chu, her face morphing into
the visage of her husband, who was running for her vacant seat.
But these mailings weren’t created just to make your stomach churn.
Would-be candidates of the future can learn a few things from these
mailers. Do you, gentle reader, want to run for office? And, more
importantly, do you want to take down your opponent without looking
like a jerk? A survey of attack mailers can offer a few lessons for
a candidate who wants to succeed with a good – that is, really nasty
– campaign.
1. Pray that someone else will attack your opponent. This approach
isn’t as passive-aggressive as it sounds. In California, candidates
who don’t want to ream out the opposition can sit back and nervously
wait for a supporter – you know, those independent-expenditure groups
that politicians are always complaining about – to do the dirty work
for them. In the West San Gabriel Valley, a mysterious group known
as the North-South-East Coalition to Reform Local Government warned
residents that Assembly candidate Mike Eng, a Chinese-American city
councilman in Monterey Park, is "not like us." Voters couldn’t be
sure who "us" was, but it didn’t help, since Eng won anyway.
2. "Big" is always better. If your opponent takes campaign donations,
always assume it’s from somebody big. In the South Bay, business
leaders who favored state Senate candidate George Nakano dinged his
opponent, Assemblywoman Jenny Oropeza, for taking contributions from
"Big Oil." Consumer advocates, in turn, gave Nakano hell for taking
money from "Big Tobacco." (Oropeza won.) Once again, neither candidate
wrote or paid for those pieces, leaving the unsavory attacks up to
their supporters. And, of course, such independent-expenditure groups
always keep their distance from the campaigns of their candidates,
as required by law. No, seriously.
Going negative early: George Nakano got schooled by Jenny Oropeza
3. Let the family twist the knife. Why look angry when there’s an
indignant spouse on hand? Nakano, for example, relied on his wife
to tell voters that Oropeza had distorted his voting record. In an
oversize letter to the electorate, Helen Nakano said her husband
couldn’t have voted on a sensitive environmental issue highlighted by
Oropeza since he was in a hospital recovering from prostate cancer
on the day of the vote. "As a cancer survivor herself, I don’t know
why Jenny Oropeza would lie about my husband’s vote," said Helen,
whose poison pen then also implied that Oropeza had been a bit eager
to trumpet her own bout with cancer to the media. Up in Glendale,
the wife of Assembly candidate Frank Quintero made a similar pitch,
saying her husband had been unduly slimed by Democratic opponent Paul
Krekorian. "I knew this race would be tough… but I never thought
our opponents could sink so low," wrote Jani Quintero. Krekorian did
indeed send issue-negative ads, but Jani declined to tell voters what
they were.
4. Rely on your friendship network. Okay, so you have no way to pay
for your own negative mail, and there’s not a spouse on hand to help.
That still doesn’t mean you have to look negative! State Assembly
candidate Kevin de Leon found four union leaders who looked especially
grumpy over his opponent, union organizer Christine Chavez. The union
leaders badmouthed Chavez, ironically, for refusing to sign a de Leon
campaign pledge against negative campaigns. After slamming Chavez
for failing to vote in the 2000 election, the union leaders reminded
voters to say "YES to Kevin de Leon and his positive campaign for
the future of California." The reality was, Chavez had not sent any
hit pieces. But de Leon, who won by 20 points, said on Election Day
that he sent the piece because Chavez had authorized a telephone poll
accusing him of mistreating avocado pickers.
Kevin de Leon, in an ironic twist, criticized Christine Chavez for
not signing his positive-campaign pledge.
Barry Groveman’s attack on Jonathan Levy in the 41st Assembly District
5. Find a zippy symbol to demonize your opponent. Teacher and peace
activist Marcy Winograd zeroed in on a piece of jewelry during
her long-shot campaign to unseat U.S. Representative Jane Harman, a
Democrat running for reelection in a coastal district stretching from
Marina del Rey south to San Pedro. The bling in question was a brooch,
featured prominently on Harman’s lapel, of a B-2 bomber. The bomber
lapel pin neatly established Harman as a little too willing to march
into President George W. Bush’s war in Iraq. Farther up the coast,
Calabasas Councilman Barry Groveman skewered attorney Jonathan Levey
over one of his former law firm’s clients: Philip Morris.
Groveman sent out mailers with Levey’s face, looking slightly demented,
superimposed on individual cigarettes inside a case titled "Jonathan
Levey Extra Lights." Groveman and Levey canceled each other out,
sending school-board member Julia Brownley to the state Assembly.
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