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By GUY KOVNER
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Congressional candidate Norman Solomon says he stands by his campaign mailer critical of opponent Stacey Lawson, rejecting assertions that the two full-color fliers are hit pieces.
Jared Huffman, left, Stacey Lawson and Norman Solomon
“What’s important is that they were factual,” Solomon said Thursday.
Lawson, a San Rafael businesswoman and political newcomer, fired back.
“If my opponents want to resort to distortions and lies then that is their choice,” she said. “Only people in the lead get attacked and only those who are trailing attack.”
Lawson declined to characterize Solomon’s fliers, saying she would “leave that to others.”
One of the mailers, citing Lawson’s acknowledged failure to vote in eight of 12 elections from 2003-08, juxtaposes pictures of Lawson with former gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman and the fictional Pinocchio.
Whitman, a Republican who lost the 2010 gubernatorial race to Jerry Brown, had failed to vote for 28 years during her career as a business executive. She also spent $144 million of her own money on her campaign.
Lawson and Solomon are two of the 12 candidates in a wide-open race for the North Coast congressional seat, vacant due to Petaluma Rep. Lynn Woolsey’s retirement.
Assemblyman Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, is widely regarded as the frontrunner in Tuesday’s primary election that will send the two top vote-getters to a November runoff.
Solomon said he considers himself and Lawson as the leading contenders for second place.
A candidate’s voting record is a legitimate issue, said Andy Merrifield, a Sonoma State University political science professor.
But linking Lawson to Whitman, who has “extraordinarily high negatives among Democratic North Coast voters,” creates a “visceral impact” that qualifies the flier as a “hit piece,” Merrifield said.
Political partisans, including Lawson supporters, had a stronger reaction.
“Shame on Solomon,” said Kara Mills, vice chairwoman of the Sonoma County Young Democrats, a group that endorsed Lawson. “We don’t need negative campaigns.”
Jennifer Siebel Newsom, documentary filmmaker and wife of Lt. Gov. Gavin Newson, said: “It is always a disappointment when desperate candidates try to salvage their campaigns with smear tactics.”
Newsom has endorsed Lawson.
Larry Fritzlan, a Mill Valley therapist also running for the congressional seat, said that negative campaigning is part of the reason “why 90 percent of us distrust Congress.”
Solomon, a West Marin activist and author well known in progressive circles, disputed critics who said the mailers represented a lapse in his principles.
“A progressive principle is that we do not accept multi-millionaires buying elections,” he said.
Lawson, who joined the race months after Solomon and Huffman, made a splash by raising more than $900,000, including a $100,000 loan to her campaign.
If not for her own wealth and ability to secure donations from wealthy friends, Lawson “would be a non-factor in this race,” Solomon said.
He ranks third in campaign fund-raising with $630,000, behind Lawson and Huffman, the leader with $1 million.
Merrifield said that Lawson’s fresh face, liberal politics and money have boosted her from dark horse to contender, with as much name recognition as Solomon.
Campaigns “go negative,” he said, because candidates and political consultants agree that “it works more often than it doesn’t.”
Solomon declined to say whether any similar mailers will be sent prior to Tuesday’s election, calling it a matter of confidential “campaign strategy.”
His other four mailers made no mention of Lawson, he said.
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I agree. As long as the evidence presented is based on facts, people can decide whatever their conclusions are. Sad to say that even facts sometimes have no room in politics.
Wow. Reading these comments I am amazed at how angry, hypocritical, narrowly self concerned, and pedantic they are. No benefit of the doubt; just a bunch of cock-suredness. So disappointing. People get the government they deserve…and the current mess in Congress is a good representation of the people who have posted on this thread.
Whether you agree with Norm Solomon’s arguments or not, the issues he raises would be used by Jared to destroy Stacy Lawson in the November run off.
Jared is assured of being on the November ballot and does not need your vote. Your vote will make a difference in the outcome only if you use it to choose who should get that second slot.
Susan Adams would present the biggest challenge to Jared in a run off. Vote for her now and you’ll have six months to further vet both candidates.
Norman is unelectable for all the same reasons liberals like me love him. His activism and fiery rhetoric make him unappealing to moderate and independent voters that one would need to win in a general election.
While Adams shares most of Solomon’s liberal positions, she appeals to moderate and independent voters in spite of, not because of her policy positions. In part due to the difference in their styles. While Norm delivers his ideals with conviction, it can come off as lecturing to those not in agreement, where as Susan listens and involves all viewpoints in the conversation as she works to build consensus.
While Susan is a life long Democrat, she would be preferred by many non-Democrats in November because she is not backed by the “Democratic Party Machine” as is Jared.
Susan has the closest ties to the entire Northcoast, with family still living on their Mendocino Ranch as well a brother who lives in Humboldt County.
Adams also has a compelling life story of working class roots with 33 years as a registered nurse (and CNA member), smarts, with a PhD being a professor of nursing, and having served three terms as a county supervisor.
Susan was always a long shot to win in June but would be the only true contender in November. I believed that last October when I joined her campaign and having talked to hundreds of voters since then I believe it even more so today.
Vote Susan Adams on Tuesday.
Much ado about nothing. Jared Huffman, bless his naive unprepared and informed self, is going to be our Congressperson. He’ll do it without my vote, but he’ll do it. All the rest is getting in a lather for nothing.
I read her plans early on, seems she thinks Government can fix everyone’s problems with no regard to cost or loss of Freedom. Just another person spouting numbers with no subsistence.
If you don’t want the rich quasi-new age “businesswoman” who seems to be coasting along with no businesses at all now, just on her bank account, or the “socialist” name caller, remember Susan Adams, 3 term County Supervisor, nurse and environmentalist. She has stood up to corporations like PG and E,Sutter Health and Comcast, delivering the goods for her consituents. Endorsed by the Sierra Club and American Nurses Association. A strong women, needed in Congress.
See her website. I’m impressed! http://www.susanadamsforcongress.com
Let’s not forget the Sonoma County Farm Buruea endorsed Lawson. That says a lot about the farm bureau. They need to do their homework on a candidate before they endorse! The farm bureau lost my membership for good.
Neither of these candidates is worth your time of day.
It is funny to see so many people tear others down who for one reason or another are successful. This class envy thing is pathetic. For example, If I was smart enough to figure out a way to make more money than the next guy, and then decide to run for office, am I automatically a bad person for creating my own wealth or a better life for me and my family? It’s kind of like telling your kids to get good grades because you will be rewarded for doing the hard work, only to find out that the teacher is giving everyone a “C” because he/she didn’t feel it was fair that the “A” students recieved better grades for their work. As a matter of fact they were chumps for working so hard. Give the woman a fair shake at running for office.
Norman Soloman is a known socialist. The tactics he has chosen to employ should not surprise anyone, for they are the tactics of the socialists. The goal is to taint and smear the image of your opponent and paint them as a fringe out of touch vile or evil representative of the corrupt rich. Big deal she didn’t vote for eight years. Look at the lame choices she had to vote for during that eight years. This woman has worked hard to get what she has financially. She didn’t have a lot to start with. She has figured out how to be successful, why not applaud her accomplishments and hope she can be just as successful if or when she gets the seat.
It should not be about who has the best or worse mailer it should be about vision, goals and putting the people of our area first above parties, money or groups.
If anyone has any questions on the CA State Assembly race contact me at drgunderson@hotmail.com. Thank you
Didn’t care much for the form of the mailer, but the content was factual.
The Meg Whitman comparison was out there from day-one. It hardly needed Solomon to hit that one home.
After learning about Lawson’s “emersion” training in preparation for her launch into the political arena, and after reading her pamphlet “Making More in America” (which she touts as containing her economic “plan”), and after watching her being ushered around the floor of the State Democratic Convention by her handlers, I’d go so far as to throw in an additional comparison to Sarah Palin.
Other than stating we need to start making things again in the US (duh!), the “plan” is full of contradictions and devoid of substance. It seems to lack any sense of political reality or awareness. Lawson begins with reciting the virtues a sustainable, local economy. Everyone should buy local–it will cut down on all those green-house gas emissions if goods and products aren’t transported across the country and shipped across the ocean. But by the end of her narrative, the aim is to grow those local endeavors into national/global markets. Seems like we’re back where we started, not only with the emissions, but with all those “local” products competing in the global labor market. While admitting some will doubt it, Lawson insists those locally made products will garner wonderful wages for the workers–she’s not sure exactly how this will happen, she just states it will. Oh, and she says everyone must “buy American,” then tells her readers/followers to “just do it once.” (The pamphlet does have nice photos, if nothing else.)
In recommending a vote for Solomon to his readers, Humboldt County’s “Lost Coast Outpost” blogger does a great job sizing up Lawson and her campaign: “Her much-touted economic plan is full of vagaries and platitudes and very little else. . . . As evidenced by her voting record, Lawson didn’t see much in American politics before it occurred to her to run as a vanity candidate to represent a Congressional district she didn’t yet live in.”
It’s difficult to say much about the realities of Lawson and her campaign without it coming off as a hit piece because the realities are that awful!
If this is any indication how a canidate will act when elected then I understand why Congress has the worst approval rating in history.
Why vote for nasty people?
This is exactly how government got to the bottom.
I guess that Lawson’s rich and hopeful backers forgot to thoroughly do their homework on who Stacey really is, and what loads of baggage she comes with. As with too many candidates plucked out of the darkness, they wanted to invent the perfect candidate for the times and sell us a puff piece, but they slipped up again here. Thanks to the others who have done the background research on Lawson and gotten it out to the voters early and often.
“Facts are stubborn things, and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts or evidence.” — John Adams
This article and discussion is a prime example of what politics has become: a newspaper doing nothing to educate us about how the candidates would make decisions or reconcile the complexities to make informed decisions that benefit all citizens. And voters who get sidetracked by the distractions (who spends the most money; whose mailer is more negative)and do not demand more from candidates.
@Tazman
All that verbage to break down Solomon, and nothing to tell us why your privileged carpetbagger deserves the time of day.
Your use of over-the-top words like “toxic” is ridiculous. Scared, are we?
@Thorn
Exactly! All these people have never had a problem going overtime negative on the candidates they don’t like. Hypocrites!
Hmmmm, rich woman who doesn’t vote and then decides she wants to start at the top, and all her rich friends support her. Who does that remind me of?
Well, it’d be a lie to say that Meg Whitman doesn’t come to mind. And this is pretty tame, considering other things we often see.
Hey, Lawson and friends, if you can’t stand the heat stay out of the kitchen.
Nobody can deny that this mailer is factual. Those screaming loudest against it are the ones cringing at this truth coming out. If the truth hurts, then man up or get out of the game.
I disagree with you Mr. Merrifield. COMPARING, not linking Lawson to Whitman is a very good way to inform the people about her. A valid and truthful comparison regardless of its negative impact does not make this a hit piece. And she’s no liberal either. Sounds like you have something to gain from her being elected.
So what that the Sonoma County Young Democrats endorsed Lawson. Of course they’ll be stung by this truth and they’ll whine and moan and groan. They sort of forgot to mention that Petaluma City Councilmember Gabe Kearney is the president of this group. You know him as the fake Democrat who hasn’t questioned one single development since he got appointed NOT elected. This group has no credibility.
Go get ‘em Norman. Lawson should not even be a contender from the beginning!
Clay – I guarantee you it was either Solomon or Lawson. Roberts’ campaign has done some great mailers and TV and must be gaining traction. With Solomon and Lawson both losing support from their nasty fight with each other, Roberts has a real opportunity to make the runoff for the GOP and clearly someone has figured that out!
Solomon’s personal attacks (in mailers and campaign forums) are exactly the kind of toxic politics that turn people off from our political system.
At first, I was surprised that such a negative campaigner would have he had the chutzpah to use “principled” in his campaign literature/logo. But now that I’ve looked into Solomon’s career, I see that this kind of cynical double-speak is actually his calling card.
You can see this by reading a book he wrote in 1992 called “Power of Babble: The Politician’s Dictionary of Buzzwords and Doubletalk for Every Occasion.” In it, he explains how to “pull the wool over unsavvy eyes.” The book previews the strategies he has used in his congressional campaign.
For example, he wrote: “Ambiguity that sounds forthright is a politician’s best rhetorical friend.” Hmm, how about that campaign slogan “Independent, Progressive Democrat”?
He also wrote: “Don’t shy away from timeworn doubletalk.” As in, our campaign is about “principle as strategy” but we also stand by our sleazy hit pieces.
Even better, he wrote: “strive to present your expedient choices as acts of courage.” How about that “no corporate PAC” mantra — as if any corporate PAC in America was going to donate to a guy who is so far to the extreme left that he only reluctantly became a Democrat a few years ago?
Solomon is neither principled nor progressive, if you look at his actions. (Which, incredibly, include using his campaign funds to buy dozens of his own books — check out his FEC report!)
For a guy who so aggressively throws stones at others, he sure lives in a large glass house.
I give Lawson a lot of credit for staying positive when she could be hitting Solomon on so many things.
Maybe someone should let Kara Mills know that the Sonoma County Young Democrats with Nick Caston and former chair Erin Carlstrom have a history of using negative campaigning. So it sounds a bit hollow to cry when it is used against your preferred candidate.
I got a hit piece robo-call against Dan Roberts yesterday- only caught part of it on the machine.
Something about while he’s running as a Republican, he’s been a member of 3 parties in the last 3 years (Ross Perot’s Reform Party and American Independent are the others). In his interview with the IJ, he explained that he wanted to run against Lynn Woolsey on the Republican ticket in 2010, but was still a Reform Party member, and it was too late to re-register Republican in time, so he ran as an AI.
What I’m curious about is who paid for that call? My best guess is that it was supporters of one of the “2nd place contenders”- either Lawson, Solomon or Susan Adams.
Thoughts? Probably not Susan Adams, given that she hasn’t raised as much money, and less likely to be Norm Soloman calling Republican households trying to get their vote.
Seems to me that it’s probably the Lawson campaign (or an independent expenditure committee working on her behalf), trying to get Republicans to cross over and put her in the run off.
Normon Solomon is right. These are all factual statements. Stacey Lawson may not like it but the fact that she hasn’t voted in the last twelve elections and failed to to pay taxes for a manufacturing company she ran in China are very relevant and voters deserve to know about them. And if she wasn’t so rich she never would have made it even half this far on her own.
I suspect her outrage has more to do with the fact that voters hate this kind of behavior and will not vote for a candidate who can’t even make the most minimal efforts to comply with good citizenship. I am sure that Stacey Lawson’s popularity has dropped like a rock in all the CD2 polls.