Editor,
This is a follow-up to Peter Navarro’s letter in the local newspapers last week (“Whalen’s Engineering Bids for GOP Voters,” Letters, Oct. 18) condemning as unethical the practice of candidate of one party – in this case Democrats — buying endorsements in “slate mailers” of the other party – Republicans – in order to deceive unknowing Republican voters into voting for them in the ostensibly nonpartisan race for City Council. Navarro singled out Bob Whalen.
A Republican acquaintance received one such slate mailer. It was headed in large type: “Attention: Republicans – Election Day Voting Guide,” and sure enough there were the smiling faces of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. There also was Bob Whalen’s name, with a campaign statement, as Navarro’s letter had said.
However, shockingly, there also was the name and statement of Verna Rollinger, the candidate officially endorsed by not only the Laguna Beach Democratic Club, but by the Orange County Democratic Party. There was an asterisk leading to a box at the bottom which states: “Appearance is paid for and authorized by each candidate and ballot measure which is designated by an *”
So it would appear that Verna Rollinger, whose virtue, honesty and integrity is extolled effusively in the letters that flood the local press, was willing to stoop to paying some Republican hack for a place on a mailer to be sent to Laguna Beach Republican voters to deceive them into thinking she was associated with Mitt Romney and their fellow Republican.
Is this corrupt, unethical? Ask ourselves – fellow Democrats and liberals of Laguna Beach — to imagine the hue and cry that would arise over the city if Steve Dicterow had bought his way onto a Democratic slate mailer. Just imagine, and tell me why Verna does not deserve the same reaction.
As I have said before, Verna is a lovely person, and it is hard for me to see her personally going out to contact a political hack and buying her way onto a Republican slate mailer, so it must be her handlers who are the morally bankrupt sleazy politicians who would do and say anything for their candidate.
If anyone disbelieves it, call or e-mail, and I will furnish a copy.
Gene Gratz, Laguna Beach.
