Just before the primary election last week, the California Latino Leadership Fund, which is at least partially funded by the Latino caucus, sent a mailer to residents of AD-43 linking Paul Krekorian to terrorist wannabe Mourad Topalian. 

The mailer sent by the Oakland-based Leadership Fund targeted Krekorian and the Armenian National Committee of America, an advocacy group that endorsed him.

The mailer accused the ANC of giving an award to “suspected terrorist” Mourad Topalian in 2000, and faulted Krekorian for accepting the ANC’s endorsement in the Assembly race.

Topalian, a former Armenian National Committee leader, was sentenced in 2001 to 37 months in prison for storing stolen explosives and owning two machine guns. The ANC says it cut its ties with Topalian after his conviction.

In fact, Quintero himself had been endorsed by the ANC when he ran for City Council in 2001. (LA Daily News 6/9/06)

Well, now the Latino caucus is under fire for this rather vile hit piece.  In another piece, a mailer went out against Mike Eng in AD-49 suggesting to white and latino voters that Eng “is not like us.”  Yikes!  That’s really a not so subtle racist remark, isn’t it? The actual caucus members plead ignorance of the deal, but they are looking for answers on what happened to allow these attacks:

Political mailers bankrolled by the Latino Caucus, which linked Democratic Assembly candidate Paul Krekorian to a terrorist and played the race card against Democratic contender Mike Eng, are being denounced by community leaders and Caucus members who say they want to know who approved the attacks.

Capitol sources said that the job of the vice chairman of the Latino Caucus, Assemblyman Joe Coto, D-San Jose, may be on the line.

Several Caucus members met Tuesday across the street from the Capitol at private offices in the 11th and L Building to discuss the mailers, which were funded with independent-expenditure (IE) money. They are trying to figure out how to limit political fallout from some of the nastiest hit pieces in this year’s primary campaign.

“It’s an affront to us, especially because we for so long have been the victims of this kind of crap,” said Assemblyman Hector De La Torre, D-Southgate. He and Assemblyman Albert Torrico, D-Newark, have launched an investigation into the flyers. (Capitol Weekly 6/15/06)

These kind of nasty, bordering on racist, ads have no place in politics at all.  While they shouldn’t be used on politicians of any party, to see them used in Dem on Dem attacks is particularly disconcerting.  The incestuousness of the relationships portrayed in the Capitol Weekly article is rather discusting.  Check it out.