The contest for mayor in Santa Ana has been heating up for weeks. That heat has brought the cauldron of Santa Ana politics to a boil. Councilman David Benavides is leveraging more community support than any other previous opponent of 25-year incumbent mayor Miguel Pulido. Independent Expenditure groups have been established to support both candidates, and tens of thousands of dollars in mailers have been spent supporting their favored candidates or attacking their opponents.
It’s been a fun race to watch.
As we reported yesterday, the group supporting Mayor Pulido has distributed deceptive mailers implying Democratic Party endorsement and support for Pulido, even though Councilman Benavides is the endorsed candidate of the Democratic Party of Orange County. But the most haunting antics of Mayor Pulido’s supporters was a phone call placed the other day to the wife of David Benavides.
The caller, who left a message under the name Joe Hill, reportedly called Emily Benavides while she was teaching her class. It was not lost on the Benavides campaign that the name of the caller was the same as our occasional blogger, Joe Hill. Joe assures us he did not call Mrs. Benavides. In addition, the Benavides campaign was sent an email request with “strange questions” from someone named Joe Hill seeking an interview. Joe tells us he didn’t make any such request.
Throughout Joe Hill’s time blogging for LiberalOC he has focused on matters related to County Government, State Assembly races, and matters involving the City of Anaheim. He has not written anything remotely related to the current race for Mayor in Santa Ana.
The fact that some zealot supporting Mayor Pulido would resort to such tactics as calling a candidate’s wife at her place of employment has caused Joe to reconsider his involvement in politics as a blogger. So he will no longer be contributing to our blog.
For our part, we have a few suspects in mind that we can point to regarding this disgusting action in support of Miguel Pulido. For example, a supporter of Pulido has called Chris Prevatt’s employer several times to falsely accuse him of inappropriate conduct and investigations have also cleared Prevatt. The Editor of a Santa Ana blog has accused the Benavides campaign of attacking Mayor Pulido’s family for criticizing the Mayor regarding his supervision (or should we say lack of supervision) of a party held at his home by his son that resulted in a rape allegation that was later recanted as being consensual sexual contact between two minors and claims of underage drinking. It wouldn’t surprise us if one of these two individuals was involved. It is a tactic they have used many times before.
At any rate, we’re amused that both of us have been accused of being Joe Hill and we’re disappointed that Joe will no longer blog for us.
You can’t buy advertizing like this.
Are you referring to Art Pedroza and Sean Mill? Sean admitted to me it was him!
I was busy pouring over the Usual Suspects property tax statements and credit reports that I borrowed from my boss. Ask mother. She’ll vouch for me.
Voters of Santa Ana, say NOT to Pulido and his clone on steroids”Benavides”. Vote to take decency and transparency back to OUR city. Vote for George Collins!!!!.
Long overdue, but here we start a FB page titled “the truth about miguel pulido”. Dedicated to Art Pedroza/Henry Gattis/Carpetbagger/SA Sally who is one in the same. Hypocrisy not included Fart Pedroza.
Pedroza=Carpetbagger
I’m certain of it now. He is editing and deleting posts that call him out. Shameful but true.
Politics are sad. That’s what I’ve come to realize.
Besides my son’s birthday and election day, the most important date in November for me is November 26…that’s the day its time for someone to face the music.