A multi million dollar campaign for Fresno County Supervisor between Debbie Poochigian and Clovis Council member Nathan Magsig has been full of fireworks for several weeks now, but on the final weekend a negative mail piece designed by former Assemblyman Mike Briggs and funded by SEIU is causing quite a stir in this hotly contested battle.
At issue here are two recently formed Independent Expenditure Committees, the "Friends of the Valley PAC" and "Citizens for Representative Government". "Friends of the Valley" is so new it doesn’t even have an FPPC number. It funded the hit piece on Chuck and Debbie Poochigian, with major funding by the SEIU, a close ally of Supervisor Bob Waterston. Waterston is vacating the seat under a cloud of ethics allegations, and has vowed to remain neutral in the race. But there is no question he knows what SEIU is doing. SEIU leaders have also hinted that that Mike Briggs firm, Creative Campaigns, did the work on the hit piece for SEIU. Briggs is closely aligned with Nathan Magsig.
"Citizens For Representative Government", formed on May 9th, received major funding from Supervisor Waterston and a host of other Magsig supporters. Their mail piece, a pro Magsig district mailer, was clearly funded by Supervisor Waterston.
The Fresno Bee’s political blog finds Waterston in denial about the piece. I find that very hard to believe. At any rate, this is a late bit of drama in this closely contested race. And Mike Briggs being in the center of the storm is no accident. He’s clearly had it out for the Poochgians for years, and in a campaign ad against Magsig, Poochigian pointed out, correctly, and Councilman Magsig had worked for Briggs as a State Assembly staffer.
June 2nd, 2008 at 12:00 am
Mike,
Since you know I use to live in Fresno while in college at Fresno Pacific College, I find this mailer funny. It must have been sent to Dem. households. It would not help Magsig if sent to GOP households.
1. Democrat Congressman Jim Costa endorsed Debbie Poochigian. Of course, unlike you who has always been a good conservative leader, Chuck and Debbie did nothing to help Phil Wyman in his re-election while he was being challenged by Costa in 1994 in his state senate race.
2. To my knowledge, Chuck or Debbie did nothing to help other Republican challengers to Democrat incumbents such as Ken Kay, Dave Jackson, and Richard Cabral.
So the irony is this mailer makes them look more conservative and activists than what they really are.
Her late father was known to back Democrats over Republicans. One of her main supporters on TV is former Sheriff Steve Magarian and Hal McKinney. They also backed Democrats over Republicans. So I object to the mailer on those grounds. It paints them too conservative.
Lastly, I know for a fact that Chuck appointed liberal Republican activists in Kern County that were working with Bob Larkin to throw out the pro-life plank in the state GOP platform.