Campaign to Defeat Prop. 65

Peter King’s series on political consulting ought to give us all pause to reflect on the morality of our political system. Instead of having legitimate and thoughtful discussion about the merits of a proposition, we were deliberately bamboozled by political consultants such as Russo, Watts+Rollins Inc. who are no more honorable than prostitutes and who contribute absolutely nothing to the democratic tradition.

For a fast buck they attempted to convince the electorate to vote against their own best interests, by deliberately deceptive advertising. All that mattered to them was the end result, not how it was achieved. Therefore, they, who wanted to support the polluters, attempted to convince the voters that the proposition should be rejected because it did not go far enough, that it had exceptions for government agencies and small businesses, but the “exceptions” had to first be twisted into “exemptions,” a politically unpopular word.

So we were all subjected to one of those 30-second wonders where a poor farmer laments about how he would be hamstrung by the new anti-toxics initiative while his rich neighbor, a federal project, would not. It’s not fair, we are all supposed to think, and vote against the toxics initiative. Then sad to say for Russo, Watts+Rollins, Inc., it turns out that this poor farmer is just another actor who personally supports the initiative. But he, like they, will do anything for a buck.

And now that the election is over, and the voters seemed to be fairly intelligent, the defeat of the anti-initiative campaign really is no skin off the backs of the aforesaid political consultants. After all, they were only in it for the money, and they got paid. Win or lose, it makes no difference to them.

But to us who have everything to lose, who believe that a democratic political system depends upon an informed electorate, it does make a difference. The malefactors of great wealth still operate in our nation. Their money represents power that can be used to subvert our system of government.

It appears some sort of regulation is needed to prevent the perversion of the American political process.

SAMUEL G. PLATTS

Sylmar