Clean campaigns turn dirty

Until about the day before the Nov. 7 election, we were feeling pleasantly proud of the quality of the races for county supervisor and the Chico City Council. All of the candidates, we thought, were classy people who seemed to respect each other and were trying to take the high road in their campaigns.

By and large, they had tried to distinguish themselves from their opponents by talking about their differing philosophies. The candidates’ forums had been sharply debated but civil affairs, there had been little in the way of negative campaigning, and that small amount of negativity had been issue-oriented.

Even last week’s little dust-up about the campaign flier that some people took to be subtly homophobic (see “When is a kite just a kite?” on page X) was handled with reasonable delicacy by all concerned and cleared up within a couple of days.

Then came a couple of last-minute direct-mail hit pieces a group calling itself Nor-Cal Business PAC—it’s biggest backer was local developer Steve Schuster, who contributed $7,500—sent out just before Election Day. Using selected quotations from Chico Enterprise-Record editorials, the fliers sought to blame the entire 10-year projected city budget shortfall on Councilmembers Maureen Kirk and Scott Gruendl, accusing them of “pandering to their extremist friends” and “overspending and mismanagement.”

Well, it didn’t fly, because it simply isn’t true. But the hit pieces were dirty enough to leave a sour taste in our mouths. Too bad—it had been a pretty clean campaign until then.