Politics can be tough and it's not uncommon (to say the least) for politicians to bend the truth.
But a recent mailer sent by the Pete Stark campaign takes it to an extreme, as first reported by the Bay Area News Group.
The mailer (shown above) implies that Stark's opponent, Eric Swalwell, is a closeted Tea Partier whose campaign is being funded by Republicans.
Swalwell hasn't given any indication that he agrees with the Tea Party in any significant way. In a live chat with Patch in May, Swalwell was asked who he would model himself after politically. He listed three Democrats — Rep. Ellen Tauscher, State Superintendent Tom Torlakson and Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley.
The mailer contains a photo of Swalwell holding an Etch-A-Sketch of a GOP elephant.
But the Swalwell campaign says the photo is doctored and gave BANG the original photo, where Swalwell is holding an Etch-A-Sketch of a man that looks like himself (you can see the original attached to this article).
"It just misrepresents, it implies Eric drew that elephant on the Etch-a-Sketch and he did not," she said. "There was no reason to take a personal photo of Eric and doctor it like that."
The mailer also says, "Campaign finance reports show that over $86,000 of Eric Swalwell's contributions come from Republicans. Swalwell claims he's no conservative, but the evidence speaks for itself. Republicans and their corporate allies in the pharmaceutical world like Amgen and Pfizer are excited about young Swalwell because they think he's their cup of tea."
Though it's likely Swalwell has received money from conservatives, a large majority of the money he has received has come from fellow Democrats. (Read our recent story on the finances of the campaign.)
BANG explains why a Republican would give money to the Swalwell campaign:
Put yourself in the shoes of any Republican - tea party-sympathetic or otherwise - living in this district: Who would you vote for, with only these two candidates on the ballot? Stark and his supporters are proud that he's one of the most doggedly liberal members of Congress, and it's safe to assume anyone with even a streak of conservatism would vote against him. That's been part of Swalwell's campaign strategy from the get-go - appealing to a broader spectrum of voters than Stark can. If anyone to the right of Pete Stark is deemed a tea partier, there are a whooooooole lot of Democrats and independents out there who'll cry foul.
The mailer also raises the question that Swalwell was involved in a pay-to-play scheme and awarded a no-bid contract to people who donated to his campaign. (Patch linked out to a Huffington Post story on this accusation last month.)
On that accusation, Swalwell spokeswoman Lisa Tucker said, "there's no significance there. This was an agenda item pushed forth by the city staff. It was a 4-to-1 vote. There's no there there."
Sure, Stark is firing back and sending negative mail. That's what happens in politics. But no one's bothered to report the pieces he's sending out with positive messaging (what about the piece that talks about his work with Steve Jobs to bring computers to classrooms), or the fact that Swalwell's campaign is almost entirely made up of negative attacks (on Stark's age and family no less). Media bias?
It has made me wonder what their particular "angle" was in this case and the only thing I can come up with is that Hearst Publications' business partner, Transcontinental Printing, has a facility down there by the old Solyndra grounds on Kato Road in Fremont. Add to this that there are developers out there backing Swalwell and could one of them also be involved in how to redevelop that area around Kato Road? When you have an apparatus like SF [i]Chronicle[/i] out there along with their SFGate web presence out there openly endorsing, campaigning and mudslinging for Swalwell, it makes me wonder what is really going on here. Add to that the awful gerrymandering of Livermore into this district and that is how we got to here. With Hearst doing the "vetting" of these candidates and embarking on this "we love Eric Swalwell" and "we hate Pete Stark" campaign, even when they apparently have no other interests in this district other than they work with Transcontinental Printing on Kato Road, you have to wonder what all else is involved in this race and why these folks want Stark out and their candidate in.
Key words being "if they want to". It's up to the voters in Stark's district, especially the ones that have been in it since the beginning, whether or not they want to replace their representative. And with the constant redistricting that has being going on, especially to Livermore, this is a little offensive that we have been tossed around after every election because somebody thinks we will do their dirty work for them, especially when the districts that elected Stark since his first Congressional term have been re-electing him ever since. Sorry, but I'm not playing the game. Instead, I created a "write-in" section on my ballot for this election and wrote in somebody else's name because I refuse to be a part of the shenanigans going on here. And that's the message I want to send in this particular election. I refuse to be a part of the "wrecking crew" that wants somebody out of their office, but at the same time, because I find this choice so repulsive and how it was laid out on my ballot in the first place, I refused to vote for a candidate printed on that ballot for this office. To the Alameda County Registrar of Voters, go screw yourselves. To the Alameda County Democratic Party, screw yourselves, too, please. To both the candidates and their backers, a pox on of all of your houses and your families.
Word on the street says that if Stark was re-elected he would shortly resign and appoint Richard Valle to fill in his term. I think that a vote for Swalwell is better than an abstention. IMHO
He answered that he thought they were making pretty good cars and didn't know where it went wrong. Really?
When politicians lob these verbal stones at each other, they better be prepared at some time to have these same stones lobbed right back at them. And considering that the punk wants to represent a district here in California, it will be a little hard to maintain multiple households, here in his district and out there probably along the beltway. And if Swalwell is married and has children, they aren't going to stay here in California while he is in DC because those folks will be his support structure and that he will need them where he is. So at this point, any attack on Stark being a "Maryland resident" will probably be remembered and used for any opponent against Swalwell should the punk find himself representing or misrepresenting a district out in Washington. The kid's young enough and probably has some ambition to seek a higher elected office and if he fails in this attempt, I wouldn't be surprised when he seeks another at some other time. And hopefully there will be enough of us out there to remind the voters how bad Swalwell was in this campaign.
http://bcove.me/759skext
The SFGate told the world that Stark made this mistake. Nobody else did until after the Chronicle and SFGate released it. And nobody else challenged it because by the time that video was released from Hearst Publications, they were already embarking on their smear campaign against Stark and looking to knock him out in the Primary election. So at this point, you can't trust a source as Hearst Publications and their outlets such as the San Francisco "Chronicle" or SFGate.com, because they are biased, here. And it was Hearst Publications and their columnists on SFGate.com that were busy at work with the "hit pieces" against Stark, trying to turn things their way. Unfortunately, when Stark pulled down 42% of the votes in the Primary and their man pulled down 36%, the only person taken out was Matt Pareja, the Green Party candidate for that seat, who garnered 17% of the vote in the Primary. So Hearst had to stir things up some more to get their candidate before us voters and then convince us that we should be voting for him. It would be nice to see Stark keep that office only for the reason that it tells Hearst that they can not rig this election as they see fit. We voters are not hoodwinked by the tactics. But that's what I want to see, hopefully without me casting a vote for either Stark or Swalwell, here, but creating my own write-in section and putting down the name of my candidate.
Maybe you can answer this, Ms. Hemphill, being that you are from Newark Patch, and that Newark has always been in Stark's district since he was first elected. Why has Stark stayed so long in that office? What has he done for you and your neighbors while in that office all these years? He must have done something right for you people out there. Because the majority of the voters out there keep on re-electing him. So what is it? Because all we have heard out here in the Tri-Valley is that Stark is bad, bad, bad. But yet we have to wonder, why is he still in this office after 40 years and why are we here in Livermore gerrymandered into his district, which is also the first time he has represented me and my neighbors in theory since the last redistricting done in 2011, even though I didn't hear of this gerrymandering until the "Chronicle" made noises about it back in April of 2012, at the same time I first heard the name Eric Swalwell and even Matt Pareja, the other candidates for this seat in the Primary election. So if Stark as an incumbent is so bad, bad, bad, why has he held this seat for this long and has been consistently re-elected to this seat? One would think that if the people in his district were this fed up, they would have voted him out long before now. So if you can, Ms. Hemphill, please enlighten us on your thoughts about this election between Stark and Swalwell.
Your lame duck will be moved out within hours at 10:30AM 1/20/2013! Make the best of that too...
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