29th Assembly Race
January 7, 2004
Well, against the backdrop of the President's new immigration policy,
which I would rather not comment on, is the new attack campaign being run
by Former Fresno Councilman Chris Mathys against one of his Republican
opponents in the AD 29 primary, Mike Villines. Let this serve as an
analysis of the ad campaign being waged primarily on the Fox News Channel
and with 4 X 8 signs put up throughout the Assembly District.
First, understand that the attack ads are being run for several reasons.
First, Mathys is behind, has high residual negatives in all the polling
I've seen, and must create a negative image of Mike Villines in order to
compete for the nomination. Second, Villines is the endorsement leader,
with all the major business and political endorsements (Mathys and Mike
Briggs, the other candidate, have no notable endorsements) and is also by
far and away the leading money raiser, having raised just shy of $190,000
by December 31 and with almost $150,000 on hand at the end of the year.
Third, Mathys is self financed, can't and won't raise any money, and is
protecting his already high investment in the election by attacking
Villines. Briggs won't raise any money either and needs a sugar Daddy to
get his campaign off of the ground. His only hope is organized labor. It
might happen, but I doubt it.
Mathys needs to negate Villines money and endorsement domination with
negative, false ads in order to create doubts about Villines. It won't
work. A major political leader is going to come forward and call Chris
Mathys a liar. I can't say who, but the person has more credibility is his
left toe than Mathys does in his entire body. Checkmate on the credibility
issue. Mr. Mathys has have irritated some very influential and respected
people with these ads and they will be off the sidelines soon to weigh in.
I'm looking forward to it.
The ad itself falsely accuse Villines of being for higher taxes
(laughable) and flip flopping on the tax issue (false). In addition, the
ads somehow condemn Villines for not coming out against the Clovis Unified
school bond initiative this March (being for higher property taxes). Of
course, nothing could be further from the truth. Mathys himself met with
Terry Bradley, the Clovis Superintendent, and promised not to oppose the
school bond. Now, he is not only reneging, but attacking Mike Villines on
the issue. As a matter of fact, I have reviewed the proposed bond, and it
does not raise taxes. I therefore support it (I rarely, if ever, support
bonds). Chris Mathys should be asked by all the residents of Clovis
Unified one simple question: how do you propose to finance school
construction in Clovis Unified? Maybe we could all just close our eyes,
wish really hard, and schools will just magically appear before our eyes!
Sidebar: Let's get something straight about Clovis Unified. It is the best
managed school District in California. Period. (Seen any "budget crisis"
stories about Clovis Unified in the Fresno Bee? No. No teachers union,
either).
Finally, the ad excoriates Villines for not taking a "taxpayer protection
pledge". I don't blame Villines for not signing it. First, the pledge is
for the Valley Taxpayers Association, a group chaired by Mathys. There is
no way Mike Villines should be compelled to sign it. Second, the chairman
of the San Joaquin Valley Taxpayer association is John Santoya, who is on
Mathys campaign payroll, Villines won't sign that one either. The real
taxpayer groups (the ones that actually have members) like the Howard
Jarvis Taxpayers Association, already know that Mike Villines is not a tax
and spend Republican.
In the short term, these ads only raise Villines name identification in
the District, and in the coming weeks, you will see the names Poochigian,
Nunes, Cogdill, Jones, Magarian and other political heavywights associated
with Villines.
While the race is far from over, and could go in any direction, Mathys
present strategy of making the public think as negatively about Villines
as they do about him won't work. There are too many fine people willing to
associate, endorse and give money to Villines. Stay tuned.
Michael Der Manouel, Chairman |