Opinion: When is Republican not Republican? On a slate mailer!
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The part of local and state election campaigns I always look forward to is the arrival of the slate mailers -- like a combination of the annoying holiday ‘dear friends and family’ newsletter and an ever-hopeful chain letter.
This Tuesday’s election didn’t disappoint. There’s a slate mailer called ‘Your Republican Voter Guide for Los Angeles,’ and every single candidate on it paid to get his/her name and mug on it. It doesn’t list the candidates as Republican themselves -- I don’t believe any of them is a Republican, and all of the offices they are running for are nonpartisan. But it tries to make them seem GOP simpatico. The mailer points out, for example, that Democrat Jack Weiss has been endorsed by ‘former Republican mayor Richard Riordan’ -- who also endorsed Barack Obama for president last September.
‘Your Republican Voter Guide for Los Angeles’ is, says the teeny print, ‘prepared by Californians for Quality Healthcare, not an official political party organization.’
Well, duh. When a ‘Republican’ slate mailer recommends a ‘yes’ vote on Measure B, the city’s pro-solar and pro-labor initiative, you figure something is squirrelly. Especially considering that the San Fernando Valley Republican Club’s own voter guide says ‘no’ on B, and the Republican Party of Los Angeles County has declared its opposition to the measure.
Another purportedly Republican mailer with an all-starred cast (the asterisk indicates they paid to get on the mailer) also recommends a ‘yes’ vote on B.
This one calls itself the ‘Los Angeles County Republican Leadership Voter Guide.’ It’s mailed out of Laguna Niguel, which isn’t in Los Angeles County. The ‘Republican Leadership’ is apparently the political campaign consulting group Landslide Communications, whose website is illustrated chiefly with conservative and Republican clients.
This mailer, too, recommends a ‘yes’ vote on Measure B. If you look closely, the most Republican thing about the mailer is a box trying to goad recipients to click on a cheesy anti-Obama website. The box shows a picture of a solemn Obama and a smiling Rush Limbaugh and exhorts people to ‘take the poll’ about Limbaugh wanting Obama to fail. Clearly, this is about snagging web traffic and enlisting supporters.
The payoff for me was that the site amusingly compounded its right-wing wackiness by misspelling the name of one of the Obama staff it features prominently and unflatteringly -- White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.
There’s still one more day’s worth of mail before the March 3 election. Still time for anything to happen -- like the postman delivering a ‘Republican’ slate mailer endorsing Antonio Villaraigosa!