(Another piece from blogger thereisnospoon, who lives in the district and is serving as our Ventura County correspondent. - promoted by Dante Atkins (hekebolos))
The Strickland campaign is really outdoing itself at this point, and reinforcing Hannah-Beth Jackson's arguments against him all at the same time. No sooner does Hannah-Beth's latest mailer (a copy of which I got in my mailbox yesterday) come out attacking Strickland for his big money contributors in the oil, tobacco, pharmaceutical and other industries, than Tony tries to pull off yet another fraud on voters with the hidden help of those same industries in whose pocket he resides.
Apparently, voters all across the 19th District started receiving mysterious robocalls from a group called "Californians for Jobs & Education". The calls, of which there are as yet no transcripts available, are in support of Tony Strickland. Below is what a quick google search of this outfit brings up, via Election Track: |
$50,000 from Farmers Employees & Agents Pac (Mill Valley, CA) on 04/22/2008
$10,000 from Personal Insurance Federation Of California Pac (Sacramento, CA) on 04/16/2008
$50,000 from Chevron Corporation (Sacramento, CA) on 09/07/2007
$25,000 from Fair Public Policy Coalition (Sacramento, CA) on 09/10/2007
Another $25,000 from Chevron Corporation (Sacramento, CA) on 12/13/2007
$12,500 from California Hospital Association Pac (Sacramento, CA) on 08/29/2007
$5,961 from California Senior Advocates League Pac (Los Angeles, CA) on 03/06/2007
Wait a minute...the California Senior Advocates League Pac? Who the heck? Let's take a little trip to the Secretary of State's page for these folks. What do we see? Why, the very first listing is:
$25,000 from "EL DORADO ENTERPRISES DBA HUSTLER CASINO"
Nice. I'm not sure what these seniors are advocating for, or who is doing the advocating for them, but I strongly suspect Bob Dole and his little blue pills may be involved. Other savory contributions for these wonderful people include $50,000 from Farmer's Insurance, $25,000 from 21st Century Insurance, $10,000 from "Los Angeles Casinos Pac" (score again!), and a whopping quarter million from a couple of real estate PACs. Real nice...
Great group of friends Tony has there in the "Californians for Jobs & Education". Because nobody's more interested in jobs and education big insurance companies, hospital owners, and Chevron. A quick check of the Secretary of State's page on the group also shows another nifty $5,000 contribution from "INSURANCE BROKERS AND AGENTS ISSUES PAC, SPONSORED BY IBA WEST, INC." These, of course, are just more Californians interested in jobs and education, fighting to give everyone's favorite environmentalist Tony Strickland a chance to fight for the people!
But that's not all. Whom did these upstanding Californians for Jobs and Education hire to conduct the robocall campaign? A firm based in San Diego called TaxpayersAdvocate, whose website apparently hasn't been updated in almost a year and a half. TaxpayerAdvocate is a one-man show headed by longtime GOP San Diego activist Scott Barnett, whose own bio mentions that:
From December 2001 to June 2003 Mr. Barnett served as President/CEO of the Lincoln Club, a GOP donor group.
You might think Tony Strickland might have tried fighting for the district by, say, at least using a contractor who's not a real estate obsessed GOP operative from San Diego.
But then, taking money from insurance companies, Hustler casinos and Chevron to pay a San Diego operative to make fraudulent calls is just the name of the game for Tony Strickland and his crew.
Fortunately, the voters of SD19 can do better. |
