Ethnic targeted campaigning? We get closer to truth

Just talked to Rachel Clark. Today, she laid the responsibility for where her campaign mailers are going firmly at the feet of Mike Valles, former mayor Judith Valles' brother.

Yesterday, when asked whether a toughly worded attack letter against Joseph Turner penned by Judith Valles was sent only to households with Hispanic surnames, Clark said she didn't know, and that Valles wrote and sent the letter, an operation funded by Clark's campaign committee.

Well, the campaign committee is run by Mike Valles. Judith Valles said yesterday she only wrote the letter, and that the "campaign committee" paid for it and mailed it out, so she didn't know if it only went to Hispanic surnamed households.

Mike Valles isn't returning phone calles.

Today, this reporter gave Clark three opportunities to distance herself from the practice of race-targeted campaign mailers. She did not.

"Mike's my consultant, i follow his advice," Rachel said. "I've never been involved in anything like this before."

Second time, same question:

"I think letters are sent to all types of groups," Clark said. "Letters target Republicans, target Democrates. I'm Hispanic, but I would not get a letter targeted at Hispanic names. I don't see how you could even do that."

Third time, same question:

"How do you do that," Clark said. "You target mailers depending on what kind of message you want to get out to people, but i don't know if that (targeting Hispanic names) is even possible."

There it is. If Clark's campaign did not send biting, fear-mongoring, overtly ethnic targeted campaign mailings to Hispanic-surnamed voters, it has done absolutely nothing to make that evident over the last two days.

No facts. No responsibility. No one will answer this question. As you can see from Clark's response, she notably declined three times to distance herself from the practice. Three times I asked if she condoned that type of campaigning, and she said nothing to the contrary.

One other interesting point: Clark repeatedly insenuates ("how would you do that") that it would be difficult or impossible to target Hispanic named voters.

I just talked to Chris Jones, a consultant for Chas Kelley, Jim Penman and others and a sworn enemy of Joseph Turner. He said targeting Hispanic names would be no harder than targeting Democrats or Republicans or any other "type" of voter. He says such ethnic targeting occurs all the time.

If the mailings did go out, what does it mean? It means that the saintly Clark is running a campaign meant to stoke fears and racial passions, something we would have expected from her opponent. Clark has vowed publicly to run a "clean campaign."