With Republican poll numbers rapidly heading south less than three weeks before Election Day, some GOP dirty tricksters are bringing out the mud buckets. Ohio gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell, for example, accused his Democratic opponent of supporting porn and pedophilia. You know, the usual nonsense. But a story out of California is pretty appalling.
The Los Angeles Times reported that Tan Nguyen, the long-shot GOP candidate for Rep. Loretta Sanchez's Congressional seat, mailed Spanish-language flyers to about 14,000 Democratic voters in Orange County with a not-so-subtle warning: "You are advised that if your residence in this country is illegal or you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that could result in jail time." (Emphasis added.)
Legal immigrants are, of course, allowed to vote.
Orange County's population is about 30% Hispanic, which reliably votes for Sanchez. The flyer was an incredibly crude attempt at suppressing the Democratic vote by scaring Hispanic voters away from the polls.
Nguyen, himself an immigrant from Vietnam, disowned the flyer once the story became public and claimed to have fired one of his staffers, saying he had no idea the mailing had taken place. He was promptly contradicted by, of all people, the chairman of the Orange County Republican Party.
"I've learned that Mr. Nguyen was involved in expediting that mailer," Scott Baugh was quoted as saying. "I've had conversations with the attorney general and folks involved with the mail house. He called the mail house himself and told them to expedite the mailing."
Facing pressure from the GOP to drop out of the race, Nguyen has not said whether he will stay on the ballot. But it seems pretty academic at this point. Another Republican candidate has been caught red-handed trying to pull a fast one on the voters. He should quit now.
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