A source of ours sent us a copy of a mailer that appears to have been issued by Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido sent to voters in Santa Ana recently. At first glance, it appears to be an older mailer from an earlier election cycle. The Mayor is thinner, has a full head of black hair, and his family photo is also old. His son appears to be in elementary school and not a teenager who threw a party that got out of hand in September, with his father and other adults present, which led to an investigation of a possible sexual assault against an underage girl that Santa Ana Police cleared.
The copy on the left hand side of the flyer appears to be brand new. It touts the Mayor’s efforts to reduce crime in Santa Ana by 75 percent (without attribution to any source) as well as a claim on the Mayor’s fight to keep Santa Ana financially secure. And the mailer directs voters to a website, www.miguelpulido.com. When you go there, it’s a Pulido website with photos procured from this blog and others throughout Orange County with links to news coverage in the Voice of OC, the Orange County Register and the LA Times — all stories that cast Pulido in a very negative light.
So we have to wonder, is this mailer a mistake by the Pulido camp or a very clever deceptive mailer sent by an IE seeking to oust the mayor? The mailer carries the campaign ID for Pulido’s 2012 election cycle.
If this was in fact issued by Pulido, it represents amazingly sloppy work. Pulido’s official campaign website, used in press releases announcing events, is www.mayorpulido2012.com, which is still owned by OC PR and eMedia Solutions, the “PR firm” run by Santa Ana blogger Art Pedroza, whom Pulido paid $5,150 in 2010. Puldio’s consultant Dennis DeSnoo told the LiberalOC in September that the campaign was taking control of the website almost immediately, but as weeks have passed, it’s obvious Pedroza still owns the site but is responsible for operating it and adding content to it.