Monthly Archives: May 2006

Special Note: Don’t forget to check out the Direct Mail Disinfo Rehab Archive with mail from the 2006 primary election, recently featured at SF’s Usual Suspects website!
Whenever you pass a political money reform bill, the road to Hell gets a new paving of unintended consequences. Take Proposition 34, which was supposedly going to limit “big money” in elections for state office.
We passed “limits” which were designed to keep “big money” out of elections, and it did have the effect of limiting large unlimited contributions, which are apparently evil in and of themselves, out of campaigns by candidates for office. One problem: no one found a legal, Constitutional way to limit efforts “independent” of candidates by those “big money” folks to speak loudly, carry big sticks, and have an incredible amount of influence in an election.
We’ve gone through 3 cycles under the new regime, and as both a manager and observer of Assembly races, I have to say that the influence of outside groups has increased ten-fold, as backers of previous reforms had hoped. Now, when a candidate runs for office, he or she has to pray to the God of their choice that assorted interest groups not only support them, but will spend untold bucks on their behalf, and pray that they’ll do something that’s helpful to their campaigns.
In 2002, we saw trial lawyers, eager to take a posthumous hit at then Assemblyman Lou Papan, spend uncounted millions on behalf of Gene Mullin, to “punish” the daughter of Lou Papan for not toeing the line enough in his time in office. While Gene Mullin’s campaign claimed it was “all them” when they won, the fact was if it was not for untold spending by outside groups, we may or may not have had a different result.
Likewise, in 2006, we have the political gang war that is the 12th Assembly district primary. No less than 11 allied “independent expenditure” committees (who oddly enough seem to have the same candid photos in their ads as the candidate does) are picking on Janet Reilly, for reasons obvious and not so obvious. For all the “experience” people talk about, it seems strange that the only thing people helping a candidate can do is to pump out mail that is more about hype than substance.
There is, however, a simple cure for this disease, one that does not require demolishing the First Amendment, passage of new Road to Hell legislation, or even taxpayer funding of politician’s races. It relies solely on common sense, and a candidate’s values.

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Last weekend, mail ballots in the California Primary were mailed out to voters, which means the first wave in what is going to be an avalanche of political junk mail is starting to make its way through the US Postal System. A primary such as the one we have now, where just about every term-limited politician is running for every other office on the ballot, makes it even more ominous.
This is also a chance to observe the power of dead trees vs. television. That’s because TV ads are seen by “everyone.” Heck, you can go on YouTube.com and see ads by the ever telegenic Steve Westly, the humorous Phil Angelides and more. You can even scrutinize the oh-so-clever ad by Fiona Ma, driving around town in a shiny new Prius! How enviro-friendly! (I wonder if she actually owns a PC-Prius or if they just rented it….frankly I’d be more impressed to see a candidate slog through the district on the N Judah, in a TV ad, complete with weirdos and stalled trains, but I digress).
Now here’s the thing about TV ads – the reason it’s so easy for snarky bloggers, politicos and the local press to pick apart these little gems is because they are so accessible. Direct mail, however, is not. Everyone is getting different pieces of mail depending on where they live, and what their past voter history (if any) is. More to the point, by the time anyone in the press sees anything earth-shattering or nasty, the election’s over.
This time, however, you can help particpate in a good old fashioned Disinformation Rehab for the Primary. If you start to get a nice big pile of steaming junk mail, don’t recycle it. Instead, send me an email and tell me what you’ve received in the mail.
If it is something I do not already have, you put it in the mail and send it to me, and I buy you a coffee or other beverage of some sort somehow. I’ll scan in the best of the bunch and post a gallery on Flickr, and we can all give these guys and gals a once-over they don’t usually get.
And besides, it’ll be fun! Really!