On this quiet Saturday, I thought I would take a few minutes to “vent” about something that has been bugging me.  I live in Orange County, where one of the highest profile Republican legislative primaries has been the battle for the 33rd State Senate seat currently held by former Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman, who is coming to end of his final term.  The two candidates are conservative Assemblywoman Mimi Walters and Anaheim Councilman Harry Sidhu.  Walters is from Laguna Niguel on the southern end of the large district, and Sidhu hails from the north end.

Of course there are a lot of primaries taking place all over California, but only one has a candidate who wins my hastily created “You Have To Be Kidding Me/What A Hypocrite” Award. 

It’s rare to see a race where on candidate opens up with attack mailer after attack mailer, which is what Harry Sidhu has done here.  I think he sent out five pieces of blistering attack mail on Walters before she finally responded in kind.  To read Sidhu’s mailers, you would think that Mimi Walters is a liberal with a high absentee rate in the legislature.  Neither are true, but you know how it works in politics… 

I remember commenting to another politically savvy person that I didn’t know if this was such a good strategy.  Both Sidhu and Walters have never represented the vast majority of voters in this district, and I thought both needed to start out presenting a positive image of themselves.

So – get this – Harry Sidhu, after spewing out literally hundreds of thousands of pieces of attack mail on Mimi Walters last week held a press conference, and announced that he had ‘seen the light’ as it were, and said that he no longer would support negative campaigning in the race.  He even symbolically shredded over-prints of his attack mailers into a shredder.

Oh my God!

Such moxie is worthy of ridicule.  Why would he make such an announcement?  Perhaps it is that Harry has a glass jaw.  After Sidhu set the tone with his barrage of unanswered hit pieces, Walters’ campaign has now struck back with some very effective negative mail of their own – and apparently Harry doesn’t like being on the receiving end.

I called Harry to express my disbelief and ask him about this.  Apparently he felt that Walters’ mail was more negative than his own.  Cry me a river.

To this I say two things – first, treat others as you would like to be treated yourself.  And second, grow up. 

There is probably some appropriate statement to make about the state of campaigning in general and the proliferation of negative mail, and what that does for the cynicism of voters.

But you really have to nod your head with disbelief when someone who engages in this kind of activity suddenly (perhaps when he no longer feels it is necessary to do so) decries his own tactics.

Either Sidhu thinks the rest of us are dumb, or, well to be frank, he is.  Either way, I expect more from seasoned politicians as they play in the big leagues.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, May 24th, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.