Yesterday over at the Orange Juice blog on our post about Linda Ackerman’s phony “businesswoman” label, a commenter named “baxter” related how somebody from the Ackerman for Assembly came a knockin’ on his door.
In the world of politics it is believed that if you just keep saying the same thing over and over again, eventually people will believe it.
Let’s consider Linda Ackerman’s repeated assertion (and the claim in many of her endorser’s statements that were obviously written for them) that she is an “experienced businesswoman.” Well, we would like to know just what that experience entails. Let’s let Linda’s campaign website help us out with a description of her vast business experience:
An experienced businesswoman, Linda serves as the Vice President of Financial Development for the Marian Bergeson Excellence in Public Service Series and a corporate board member of USCB, Inc., a California receivable and management company.
That’s it. No history, no resume. You’d think if there were any real accomplishments she’d be only too happy to share it with her would-be constituents. Hmm.
The Marian Bergeson blah-blah-blah isn’t a business. It’s a training program to promote female Republican politicians by having them learn the ins and outs of Repuglicanism. According to the Bergeson website, Ackerman is a member of an executive committee (it says nothing about her being a “Vice President” of anything). And in any case, “Development” is a polite way of saying “fundraising from corporate donors.” No prizes offered for guessing who the targets of any fundraising are: corporate lobbyists!
USCB is a sort of glorified “Check into Cash” for corporations who have extended credit to people like Ackerman’s would-be constituents. It’s a real business, all right, but being on its board hardly qualifies her as a businesswoman. And of course she got that part-time gig based entirely on who her husband was. The links on the USCB site take you to major health care trade associations, etc. Hmm. More lobbyists.
Of course we have already shared another of Mrs. Ackerman’s board positions, on The Pacific Policy Research Foundation, a completely bogus 501(c)(3), whose sole reason for existing is to get state legislators and lobbyists holed up together in a five- star Maui hotel for a week. Funny, the Pacific Policy Research Foundation fails to appear in her biography. Come on, Linda, are you suddenly ashamed of the noble goals of the “public purpose” Foundation you created? What’s that? You’re afraid the public might not understand? Bet you’re right!
What is it about Linda Ackerman and lobbyists?
Finally, we have to ask:
Mrs. Ackerman do you have any real business experience at all? Have you ever run your own business? Have you ever signed the front of a paycheck? Have you ever paid business taxes or fees, or worker’s comp?
Or could it be your claim to be a “businesswoman” is as hollow as your empty claim to live in the 72nd? Is this claim just more campaign pabulum meant to be sucked up by a careless electorate?
The Fullerton Harpoon did a post yesterday about an article that the Register’s Frank Mickadeit did about the Ackerman/Norby feud. Frank didn’t bother to tell his readers that he pals around with the Ackermans socially – just like he did with Mike Carona. But we know. Mickadeit proceeded to pass along a truck load of horseshit peddled by Dick Ackerman, including 25 year-old recollections about Norby as a sexual harasser that he suddenly just remembers. Of course his corroborating witness is dead as a doornail.
Well, yesterday afternoon the Harpoon re-read the Mickadeit piece and a light bulb snapped on. As the helpful Frank tells it:
Ackerman says the two had a friendly beer at Elmer’s after Norby won. “I said, ‘Hey, things are going to be good. We’ve got five conservatives.’ But the votes kept coming out 4-1,” with Norby dissenting.
In a post update the Harpoon unloads:
PROOF THAT ACKERMAN IS A LIAR – OR HAS A REAL, REAL BAD MEMORY. MOLLY McCLANAHAN WAS ON THE CITY COUNCIL THEN. THERE WERE NEVER 5 CONSERVATIVES. C’MON DICK. YOU REMEMBER MOLLY DON’T YOU? YOU KEPT HER FROM BEING MAYOR FOR 6 YEARS. YOU OUGHT TO. MAYBE LINDA LEQUIRE CAN HELP. HER MEMORY IS AT LEAST AS GOOD AS YOURS.
So what are we left with? A man whose honesty or memory is rotten. His whole interview with Mickadeit is discredited, and is just typical of everything else in the Linda Ackerman 72nd Assembly campaign: her fake residency, her phony self-description as a business woman, and her contention that people in the 72nd asked her to run. It’s all a tissue of falsehoods – as bogus as her staged photos.
We have been disparaging the Linda Ackerman carpetbagging campaign for the 72nd State Assembly seat as nothing more than an Irvine political socialite prowling for a job in North Orange County. Well it isn’t!
The images above were harvested from her campaign website showing the versatile Mrs. Ackerman in numerous wardrobes in obviously staged poses with the usual subjects of political campaign photography: business people, cops, doctors, a geezer, firefighters, et al.; even a gaggle of eager little girls, perhaps learning how to plan a Maui vacation on somebody else’s dime!
And what a wardrobe she has!
Notice the time stamps on the images. Six different get ups for six different locations documented by photos taken with a few hours. What a quick change artist! Hard to believe she actually found time to chat with those actors they called in from Central Casting. What a gal!
Art Pedroza over at the Orange Juice blog has written a piece about the candidates in the Special Election Primary to fill the vacancy left by Repuglican darling and now disgraced Mike Duvall. Read about it here.
Art notes that in the absence of a Libertarian candidate Norby should be picking up some votes from that quarter. Well that’ll be about 8 votes.
Pretty soon we’re going to be getting a flood of election mail and it ain’t gonna be pretty, soon.
Friends, we just received this entertaining e-mail from a devoted reader:
So there I am in my kitchen, washing dishes on a quiet Sunday night when my phone rings. Who is is? The last person on Earth I would ever expect. Fullerton’s former Chief of Police, Pat McKinley. The guy who wasted untold hours “designing” a dumb police “vest” that, upon retirement he could sell back to the people of Fullerton. The zombie who let all his pals in downtown Fullerton create havoc and stick US with the bill. Oh yeah, that wonderful public servant.
Well, actually, it’s a robocall, and this slacker starts peddling Linda Ackerman for Assembly! Well I guess they all have it wired the same way.
If I needed any more encouragement to oppose the carpetbagging woman from Irvine, this was it: a guy who milked his job in Fullerton for over 15 years as the City went to the dogs as he worked on his lame-ass vest that the City bought with their Obama stimulus dollars!
Thanks for the e-mail, Friend. This is really sad news for Fullerton. What it means is that McKinley has cut a deal to peddle his backside with Ackerman and Royce to run for our City Council himself next year – with the support of the Usual Suspects. Well, that cat’s out of the bag!
Just what we need. Another ex-public employee negotiating with the public employees! Some Republican!
Well, we got it straight from the horse’s mouth:
“Linda and Dick are renting and occupying a part of our house.”
The high-rolling Ackermans (who are getting thousands in campaign contributions from lobbyists for the Mrs.’ carpetbagging run for the 72nd State Assembly seat) are renting a part of a house in Fullerton’s Raymond Hills. Good thing their amigos have a big house! But seriously, does anyone actually believe they’re going to be living there, despite their “landlord” emphasizing the word “occupying”?
Actually the whole thing is a bit creepy, if you ask us, and the less we think about it, the better off we may be, although we can’t help wondering whether the Ackermans have taken out renter’s insurance.
But, really: how dumb do they think we are? The answer must be: “very.”
One of our Friends sent of the tidbit from the Capitol Morning Briefing:
(Linda) Ackerman for Assembly 2009 (72nd AD), reception, donation levels $3900, $2000, 5:30 p.m., Spataro, 1415 L St. Contact: 714 731 2233.
It seems that the carpetbagging object of our disaffection is having a fundraiser tonight at Spataro. Never heard of the place? That’s because it’s in Sacramento – right across from the Capitol building. What a place for the squadron of capital lobbyists to descend, en mass, and start their, er, investment in Mrs. Ackerman.
Okay, if you want milk, you go find a cow (we’ll let you figure out which is which), but really, wouldn’t it have been nice if Mrs. Ackerman held an event in her own district, at least to show the flag?
Oh, that’s right. She doesn’t live in our district, and it looks like she intends to finance her way to Sacramento – from Sacramento; where Dick Ackerman met a lot of monied interests in his tenure up there.
But, Mrs. Ackerman, sooner or later you will actually have to show up in the 72nd!
We have all heard about multiple families living in a single dwelling – a problem that is increasingly plaguing Orange County. Well, apparently the problem is encroaching “up on the hill” where folks like Doc Jones are doin’ all right.
It seems that the Ackerman clan has finally found itself a suitable address in Fullerton, on Lindendale, that will qualify the Missus to run for the State Assembly in a district where they don’t live. Only problem is that somebody else already lives there! We checked out the address and the abode already has inhabitants. Now, that’s not very good, is it? Bad for property values!
The sham candidate from Irvine who is dodging the clear intent of California’s Constitution is supposedly shacking up with another family. Eeeew! A phony candidacy decorated with a phony residence. That’s consistent, at least. What’s the matter? Didn’t Dick want to spring for a first and last month’s rent?
Our old Friend Allan Bartlett has posted a provocative piece over at the otherwise dreary Red County blog here. The thrust of it is that Linda Ackerman doesn’t appear to be qualified to serve in the State Legislature for the 72nd District. How come? Allan cites this problematic language in the State Constitution, in Article 4, Section 2(c), to wit:
(c) A person is ineligible to be a member of the Legislature
unless the person is an elector and has been a resident of the
legislative district for one year, and a citizen of the United States
and a resident of California for 3 years, immediately preceding the
election.
Well, Linda Ackerman has been living in a secret gated community in the 70th Assembly District for almost a decade. Hmm…
We’ll have to see what the election lawyers have to say about this.
An woman canvassing for Ackerman came to our door this morning. I asked a few questions and she was pro. Knew what she was doing, quick with answers and not shy about slamming Norby. She implied that Norby might have psychological problems Since I’m voting for a Democrat it was all wasted on me.
Hmm. Doesn’t sound like your typical volunteer precinct walker, now does it? Did Mrs. Ackerman hire people to do her walking? That would square with what seems to have been a scripted character assassination of Norby, which is perfectly congruent with the Ackerman campaign strategy.
It could be that baxter just happened to get an experienced volunteer who was really on the ball. But somehow we have trouble believing that. Linda Ackerman has zero “grassroots” support in the 72nd, where she does not live, and except for a few die-hard Republican Women Federated types and a few of Dick’s old Rotarian buddies, she would have trouble scrounging up volunteers to hit the streets.
Why this operative wasted time going to the door of an evident Democrat is a bit puzzling, but maybe they figure they need every voter that they can bamboozle.