Offering frequent news and analysis from the majestic Evergreen State and beyond, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's unconventional perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Monday, January 23, 2006

Postcard update: GOP dirty trick widespread

We have reports in now that constiutents of Democratic legislators in the 16th, 17th, 26th, 28th, and 47th Legislative Districts have been targeted with fake "sex offender notifcation" postcards.

Rep. Derek Kilmer offered this report:

The postcards were sent into our district as well. Most of the calls that I’ve received (at my home and at my office) have been from people who are angry about the cards – feeling that the Republicans were politicizing the issue of protecting our kids. We have had a couple of folks who called to ask if they could get the address of this sex offender – people who were concerned that it was an accurate portrayal.

My wife and I are expecting our first child in March. Nothing is more important to me than making sure our child – and all of the kids in our state – are safe. I’m offended by efforts to play politics with important issues.
And apparently they're using the same picture and description in every single district they've mailed the postcards out to. That "offender" sure lives in a lot of different communities and regions - the Vancouver (Wash.) metro area, Walla Walla, Kent, and the Kitsap Peninsula, to name a few.

Where is the media? This is an outrage. The Republicans are using sleazy, disgusting campaign tactics to scare and intimidate voters. And they're lying. They're feeding the public misinformation. The respected media institutions of the Pacific Northwest say they strive for objectivity, so let's see it.

Which reporter is going to be the first one courageous enough to call the Republicans on their filthy tactics? If nobody reports on this the GOP is going to think it's OK to continue executing nasty stunts because there are no consequences. If the press is truly serving the public, then it has an obligation to investigate this.

UPDATE: Apparently the person on the postcard is in fact a sex offender...I was pretty sure the GOP wouldn't just get a guy with a mugshot. unSoundPolitics offers this really lame explanation:
The person depicted in the postcard is a level 3 sex offender last known to be in Pierce County. He is "considered at a high risk to reoffend" and is somewhere in the community, but "has no supervision requirement", so we can't be sure exactly where he is. There are laws to protect sex offenders from harassment, so I'm not going to post his name, but go to the Pierce County list of Level 3 Offenders and you'll find him listed in an unincorporated part of the county. I post the description of his brutal crimes in the extended entry.
It's still a flat out lie to tell people outside of that area that this offender (with a photo and a description) is in their community. The GOP is cheap and sleazy.

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