San Diego Politics Blog

More mud is being thrown in the 50th congressional district race.

Congressional Quarterly reports that Alan Uke has a new TV commercial that criticizes Republican candidate Eric Roach for sending American jobs overseas.

Alan Uke, another wealthy GOP businessman in the race, aired a television ad beginning Thursday that accuses Roach of running a business “ that sent thousands of American jobs and billions of dollars to foreigners.”

With polls showing Roach, Bilbray and Kaloogian virtually tied and in a dogfight for the lead, this latest wrinkle is certainly making things more interesting.  Will Alan Uke be able to join the frontrunners with his attack ad?  Will Uke’s attack allow Bilbray or Kaloogian to win?  Or will this have no effect at all?

This blog has received a lot of information on secret polling about the 50th congressional district that has been done recently.

Quite frankly I don’t know what to believe when people send in this stuff.  It’s hard to corroborate.

But I will run down the reports as I’ve heard them:

*A poll taken by one of the campaigns in the past few days says that the top 3 candidates are Brian Bilbray, Eric Roach and Howard Kaloogian.  All 3 were within a couple percentage points of each other.

*Alan Uke said on the air on Roger Hedgecock yesterday that his polling showed Eric Roach with 14% of the vote compared to 12% for Brian Bilbray and 10% for Howard Kaloogian.  Uke claimed he was 4th among the Republicans at 9%.

*Datamar is supposed to come out with a poll on Saturday or Sunday.  It was supposed to come out earlier in the week but there were concerns about whether they had obtained accurate responses.  Some people say they received an automated call with the candidate choices being:  Brian Bilbray, Eric Roach, Howard Kaloogian, Bill Morrow and Francine Busby and a choice of "someone else".  Could this be Datamar surveying voters with a smaller candidate list?

*Capitol Weekly newspaper yesterday cited a poll that had Roach, Bilbray and Kaloogian all around 11%.

Republican congressional candidte Brian Bilbray is once again hitting fellow Republican candidates.

This time he is out with a mail piece that smacks Republican candidate Eric Roach.

The mailer carries the title "INSIDE: The Truth About Mystery Congressional Candidate VINCENT ERIC ROACH"

The mailer then goes on to document election after election that Roach is accused of failing to vote in.  The other day Roach admitted to the Roger Hedgecock Show that he had not made political contributions or backed other political candidates.  He explained that his involvement in making for a better world was not through politics but through charity.

These allegations of failing to vote, if true, would be very harmful for Roach’s message.  As a "newbie" candidate he is asking the public to instill trust in him to serve as their representative and vote on their behalf in Congress.  Bilbray is alleging that Roach hasn’t even been bothering to vote in recent elections and participate in the democratic process.

If these allegations are NOT true then Shame on Brian Bilbray. 

Roach is going to have to address these charges and tell us all whether they or true or not.  Time is running out for the public to make up their minds and these charges are quite serious.

You can read more about this at the Flash Report blog.  Jon Fleischman also has uploaded a pdf file of the Bilbray hit on Roach.

It’s all available here.

Republican contenders for Congress, Howard Kaloogian and Bill Boyer, have both expressed their satisfaction with news that the immigration reform plan in the U.S. Senate had been defeated. 

Yesterday Kaloogian issued an aggressive one-page press release that ripped what he called "another amnesty plan" as being "more of the same" and a repeat of the 1986 amnesty bill passed by the U.S. Senate.

U.S. Senator John McCain wants voters to know that he doesn’t appreciate Ms. Busby’s use of his name in her campaign advertising.  Here’s the statement issued by McCain:

“I want the people of California’s 50th Congressional District to know that, contrary to her suggestions, I do not support Francine Busby. There are many well qualified Republicans running in the special election. They have my support, not Ms. Busby.”