Flyer Uses Vulgarity to Attack GOP Group : Campaign: Anonymous handout containing graphic anatomical references and coarse language is aimed at an organization that monitors political extremists.

Escalating an already harsh political battle, a vile, vulgar flyer that sharply attacks leaders of the Mainstream Voters Project, a San Diego-based group that monitors far-right candidates, was anonymously distributed at this week’s county Republican Central Committee meeting.

The bright orange flyers, which outraged top Republican leaders, used graphic anatomical references, coarse language and other caustic terms to describe several women who head the MVP, which has drawn the ire of some so-called “Christian right” candidates who have been scrutinized in the group’s periodic newsletters.

One of the MVP’s founders was described as a “bitter man-hating bitch,” and the group’s president was called “a Democrat who wanted to be born a man but (to whom) fate played a cruel hoax.”

Another member was characterized as a “militant dwarf who uses MVP to meet other women with hairy chests.”

“It’s a juvenile thing to do, but it’s also pretty outrageous and vicious,” said MVP president Rita Collier. “It’s ironic that this comes from a camp that claims to promote morality and family values.”

“My reaction has gone from shock to anger to a kind of bizarre amusement,” added Marjorie Van Nuis, who also was named in the flyer. “I guess they hoped to embarrass and shame us, thinking that maybe we’d be afraid to put out any more bulletins. Well, they’re wrong.”

Kevin Kelly, chairman of the San Diego County Republican Central Committee, condemned the flyer, calling it “high-school garbage, disgusting trash that we want nothing to do with.”

“Personal attacks like this accomplish nothing and just distract from our goal of electing Republicans,” Kelly said. “If I find out who did it, I’m going to want somebody’s butt, and I’ll chew it myself.”

A stack of the two-sided flyers was left just outside the front door of the downtown state office building where the GOP Central Committee holds its monthly meetings. Neither a building guard nor any Central Committee members apparently saw anyone placing the flyers there minutes before the GOP panel’s Monday night meeting ended.

Although MVP officials believe that the flyer originated with one or several of the prominent San Diego religious-right leaders and conservative activists with whom they have clashed in the past, no one claimed credit for it on Tuesday.

Disavowing any knowledge of the incident, several conservative leaders said that, despite their gaping philosophical differences with Collier’s group, they do not condone such underhanded tactics.

“Why would I do that? What would I have to gain?” asked one conservative campaign consultant viewed as a possible suspect by MVP officials. “In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they did this themselves just to generate some publicity.”

Dismissing that theory as ludicrous, MVP officials noted that the anonymous flyer resembles the controversial “stealth” tactics that Christian fundamentalists used two years ago in winning dozens of low-level positions throughout San Diego County, establishing a political foothold that they hope to expand this fall.

In the 1990 races, many far-right candidates quietly promoted themselves through extensive church networks while minimizing their contact with the rest of the electorate. Hardball tactics also surfaced in some of the contests.

Assemblywoman Tricia Hunter, an abortion rights advocate, was attacked as a “baby-killer” in one anonymous flyer, and a mailer bearing a fictitious letterhead and signature accused a La Mesa City Council candidate of racism.

“It’s the type of stuff we’ve seen before,” Van Nuis said. “So it’s not too tough to figure out where it’s coming from.”

Headlined “What is MVP?” Monday’s flyer stated that its information about the group and its leaders was based on “background checks, public record research, DNA matching and a pap smear or two.”

On the back side of the flyer, MVP leaders are described in acerbic ways intended to be sarcastically humorous. The flyer says, for example, that one MVP member likes to “read anti-establishment literature, chain smoke and listen to obscure industrial music,” while another is described as a “former poster child for birth control (who) starts the day by pouring Jack Daniels over her breakfast.”

Calling the flyer “the kind of thing that has given San Diego a bad name” in statewide political circles, GOP Chairman Kelly angrily pledged to take action against its authors, if they are ever identified.