Mercury Dishes the Dirt But Doesn't Ask the Obvious Question

You could say that the South Bay election season doesn't officially begin until the San Jose Mercury News launches its first attack on its favorite local politics bogeyman, Santa Clara. By that criterion, 2008's election began Sunday with the Mercury's Internal Affairs gossip column stoking them old Santa Clara election conspiracy flames with a "he said, she said" story about Kevin Moore's seat.

Moore is running unchallenged for reelection this year, which strikes some as strange when there are eight candidates running for the other three seats.

The story being retailed by Internal Affairs is that Moore asked Mario Bouza not to run against him and to, instead, run for another seat.  A "friend of Bouza's" told IA that he was present when this phone call was received. Bouza also says that Chuck Blair -- currently making a second run against Jamie McLeod, after losing in 2004 -- called him and, I am not making this up, even former Santa Clara mayor Eddie Souza rang Bouza up to lay on the persuasion.

Excuse me, Eddie Souza? 

Souza hasn't been involved in Santa Clara politics for more than 15 years. In my experience, if you want to make sure you never get a return call from Eddie Souza, ask to talk with him about politics. It took me years to persuade him to talk with me, and when we did finally talk it was about the non-profit he helped found, Parents Helping Parents.

Athlete that he is, Moore wasted no time in returning the ball, claiming that Bouza in fact called him.  Chuck Blair seconded Moore, says IA.

Now, I heard part of this tale second hand at least a month ago. Having wasted way too much time in the past chasing mirages of political scandals that existed only in the minds of their beholders, I asked if anyone was willing to a) go on the record, and b) show me proof. No surprise, I never heard any more.

There's more than one thing about these stories that doesn't add up.

Moore beat Bouza by a big margin in 2004 and, if anything, he's even less likely to lose to him this time around. So I have difficulty imagining Moore making such a phone call.

But it's just as hard to imagine Bouza calling Moore. To say exactly…what? Hi, I'm thinking of running against you and was wondering if you would mind?

There's a similar story going back to 2004 about Moore phoning an opponent, Gap Kim, and suggesting that Kim run against someone else. But in that case Kim had the voicemail to prove it. In this case it's just Bouza's word against Moore's.

Or is it? There's one way to verify at least which way the calls went, if not the content of them, and I'm surprised IA didn't ask for it. (On second thought, I'm not, given the Mercury's conspiracy theory approach to Santa Clara politics.)

Let's see the call records. If Moore called Bouza, that call will show up as an incoming call on Bouza's number and an outgoing call on Moore's number. If Bouza called Moore, the calls will show up the other way 'round.

I say: Put up or shut up. Send them to me at cschuk@earthlink.net and I'll publish them here. My guess? Let's put it this way. I'll be real surprised to see any call records.

(And for the betting folks among you, how long do you think it will be before the Woodward & Bernsteins at IA "discover" the long arm of Gary Gillmor somewhere in this?)

22nd Assembly District Race: Plot Thickens with 11th Hour Slate Mailer

Like most Democrats in the 22nd Assembly district, my mailbox has been so crammed with campaign ads the past few weeks that I just toss them without even looking. Saturday was not different. 

I was about to send an Anna Song flier to join Caserta's and Fong's more elegant efforts -- sorry guys, putting it in an envelope still won't make me read it -- when something caught my eye on the cheesy slate mailer (one endorsing a 'slate' of candidates). It was not the portraits of Great Democratic Presidents that appeared to have been taken with the same camera that Brady used at Antietam. No, it was the following statement:

"Anna Song for State Assembly: Endorsed by Santa Clara Mayor Patricia Mahan...."

Say what?

Last time I heard Pat Mahan had endorsed Dominc Caserta. I have calls in to both Mahan and Song to clarify this for me. In the meantime, I did some research.

The mailer came from an outfit in Burbank called Democratic Voters Choice, which, in 2005, drew the attention of reporters at the Daily Kos political blog for a deceptive mailer about ballot propositions. 

Turns out that Democratic Voters Choice is a slate mailer house apparently run by "campaign finance consultants" Durkee & Associates, which sells space on campaign mailers to anyone ready to pay --including special interest groups in sheep's clothing. What makes these pieces insidious is that they appear to be official party communications. 

Another thing about them is that candidates don't have to give permission for their names to used on them. So the one I got on Saturday listed all the Democratic candidates from Mike Honda down. But who paid for the piece is a different story -- and it ain't the Democratic party. 

The big money behind this piece is No on 98/Yes on 99 (the ballot measures on eminent domain -- 98 has the hidden rent control abolition provision) . You can learn more about this confab here. The other two candidates who paid to be on this piece are Lane Liroff (running for judge) and Anna Song.

Liroff spent about $6,700 to be on this mailer. However, I couldn't find any campaign finance filings for Anna Song in the CalAccess database -- no contributions, no expenditures. In fact Song's campaign doesn't appear to have filed anything.

So stay tuned as we try to find out if Pat Mahan's name is being taken in vain, and, how a campaign with no contributions and no expenditures on record buys a presence on space-for-hire political mailer.