One of the worst kept secrets in Sacramento is that many political insiders believe that the real reason Senate President Pro Tem Don (“The Golden Pig”) Perata launched the recall campaign against Senator Jeff Denham was to create an excuse to funnel money to Sandi Polka and members of his own family. Polka is the Senator’s longtime political consultant and very close friend – close to the point of actually being his girlfriend.
Now the East Bay Express newspaper, which has doggedly pursued Perata and done an outstanding job of aggressively exposing the powerful politician’s numerous ethical transgressions, has pointed to Polka’s financial well-being as the true motivation for the recall. (Their article is linked at the bottom of this post.) Perata spent more than $2 million to qualify the recall, launch misleading paid media attacks on Denham that failed miserably, and fund puppet replacement candidate and proven lightweight Simon Salinas. While Perata is a huge political loser because of the recall, not all of that campaign money appears to have been wasted from the perspective of “The Don.” After all, Sandi Polka was a big financial winner despite her mismanagement of the recall effort (we presume, which perhaps we shouldn’t, that for all of that money, she actually was responsible for something).
We wondered aloud, as did others, when one of Perata’s many political committees spent $110,000 on the recall a week after the Pro Tem conceded defeat and declared he was pulling the financial plug. Now we know why. The biggest chuck of that check, referred to as covering “closing costs” by the Perata operation, actually went to Sandi Polka. She took in another $50,000 in fees. Once again we have to wonder what justified the additional payments given that the campaign was declared over by its sponsor and certainly that money wasn’t for campaign victory bonuses? It’s fair to estimate that Polka generated in total $250K to $300K or more from the recall.
**There is more – click the link**