Deception should not be used in political campaigns

Political consultant Dave Ellis didn’t write the book on campaign

hit pieces. Indeed, they’ve been a staple of elections, both local

and nonlocal for years and, most likely, will continue to be for

years to come.

And we don’t think scrappy campaign messages are necessarily all

bad either.

Who would want campaigns to be dull and lifeless? In fact, we

believe just the opposite. We think campaigns should focus on issues,

and candidates have every right to challenge opponents on political

stands that they disagree with or think the voters would disagree

with.

Healthy debate over issues, even when sparks and fur flies, is

what has and will make our democracy flourish.

But what is all bad in our estimation, and what every elected

official in Newport-Mesa should be adamantly opposed to, is running a

campaign that is any way designed to deceive or trick the voters.

Determining who is the best candidate is hard enough. It doesn’t

need to be made any harder with decoy candidates, misleading names of

organizations or phony phone messages, the latter of which Ellis has

admitted to creating but not using.

In this case, at least two victims were Greenlight candidate Rick

Taylor and the third candidate in the District 4 race, Ron Winship,

both of whom were running against incumbent Councilman Gary Adams.

The message, created by the Ellis campaign, touted Winship as the

Greenlight candidate and urged voters to punch their ticket for him.

Taylor in fact was the Greenlighter in that race. Ellis contends the

message, which reportedly was heard by only a handful of residents,

got out mistakenly.

And to Adams’ credit, he angrily denounced the message and its

intended consequence.

So, was the Ellis tactic of even creating the message illegal?

That’s too hard to tell and we’ll have to leave that for authorities

to decide.

What we do know for sure is that it certainly isn’t ethical or

honest to deceive the voting public.

Ellis is a skilled political tactician. He knows how to win. So it

should be no surprise that three of the four candidates he

represented this fall in Newport Beach alone will be sworn into

office in the coming weeks.

But winning at all costs should not be acceptable.

Newport-Mesa political leaders need to take a stand. They should

disavow all political campaigns that use dishonesty to win. They

should publicly promise that they will avoid trickery and other

political hijinks.

Better to win or lose with dignity than to hoist a victory cup

that runneth over with the slime and ooze of deceit.