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Lane County's media has thus far not found it newsworthy that between 93.1199% and 91.3626% of Mr. Holvey's contributions come from outside District 8, so I do not expect much credence to be given THIS latest outrage, but the voters have a right to know, and I would hope that some consideration might be given of these facts as I have presented them. SMEAR! The OUTSPOKEN is the newsletter of the Democratic Party of Lane County. The May issue contains the following "Letter to the Editor" -- The Editor being Frank Vignola, who is listed on Paul Holvey's website as an "endorser" of Mr. Holvey. The OUTSPOKEN has NEVER been used for political 'hit' pieces, ESPECIALLY for candidates ENDORSED in that same issue by the DPLC The nominal author of the piece, Rick Klaastad, is the DPLC's Resolutions and Platform Chair, and is a paid operative of Mr. Holvey, along with his wife, Ellen Klaastad, who received $2400 for her "management" role in the campaign from 4/02 to 5/02, according to Contributions and Expenditures reports filed (by her, as Treasurer) with the Secretary of State's office in Salem on May 6th, 2004. Mr. Klaastad is recorded as receiving money from the Holvey campaign from 4/02 to 5/02 which is important, when you consider that the blog entry he complains about was posted 4/14 and he claims to have seen it on 4/17! My Annotations are in BOLDFACE RED. HW
Controversy on Hart Williams' weblog House District 8 candidate Hart Williams posted this campaign smear to his Internet weblog on April 14: Note that the blog is characterized as a smear,. when in fact it is this letter that is the smear.
NOTE: This is VERY mild stuff, considering, isn't it? But no. The smear now begins. I am the husband Hart accuses of disloyalty. Days after he filed for office, Hart asked my wife (a former party treasurer) for advice about his 'Contributions a& Expenditures'. She informed him that when she volunteered for Rep. Holvey, it was inappropriate for her to answer Hart's specific financial questions. So Hart knew from last March that my wife was working with his opponent. NOTE: First, this is a lie. I do not ever recall making such a phone call. And if I did (the mind being imperfect, on occasion) I don't recall her telling me anything resembling this, and, there are three types of statements that I NEVER miss in conversation, to wit:
Sorry, but those never slip by me! Let's go even further, though: I learned that his wife was Holvey's Treasurer by accident on about March 18th, when I checked his campaign officers on the Secretary of State's website. I found it astonishing that Ellen was his treasurer as of March 16, when she had been grilling me on my campaign strategy at the SEIU endorsement committee meeting on March 10th! So I waited carefully to see WHEN her husband would tell me this fact. He never did. And recall that THAT is what I refer to in the blog, NOT what she might or might not have said: "her husband, one of my closest friends has YET to tell me" Unquote. Here is the rest of the letter, which I reproduce without further comment: Hart's ambition to win District 8 made him distort the truth for political effect at the cost of our friendship. I find it "sad" that Hart never admitted to me what he'd written until someone else told me about it on April 17, and "disheartening" how abruptly Hart hung up the phone when I called to confront him about it. Many Lane County Democrats have extended every courtesy to Hart during his troubled tenure in positions of party leadership. But in running for state office, 'Candidate' Hart Williams (sic) has so readily abused the loyalty of this old friend that now I must wonder with his critics which of his fellow Democrats, their advisors, advisors' spouses, or other close friends Hart will disparage next. Rick Klaastad. ### Ask yourself: if your friend's wife goes to work for your enemy, having already, seemingly, used you once -- calling you on February 9th -- to "get" at Mitzi Colbath's campaign, and then grilling you on your campaign strategy at SEIU on March 10th, wouldn't it seem like he OUGHT to tell you, when he comes over to your house -- himself a PAID operative? Oh, and the Treasurer STILL doesn't come from House District 8! So I'm wondering what all the fuss is about. Odd, that with a nearly 60 to 1 edge in fundraising over my campaign the Holvey campaign would stoop to this -- since we must ultimately hold Holvey himself responsible for the actions of his paid operatives -- that the editor would ALLOW this, and that I was so "threatening" to the Democratic leadership that this character assassination was considered a necessity. Mr. Klaastad called me, criticized me sharply that I had not mentioned Holvey and Colbath were not endorsed as well -- I am not obliged to do their PR -- criticized me for a host of other, unrelated things, and after tolerating a couple of minutes of this, I hung up the phone. I have my limits on abusive phone calls. I then received, an unanswered phone call, of which I have preserved the tape, accusing me of being the "Ralph Nader" of Lane County -- an absurd charge that suggests Mr. Holvey has an inherent right to his House Seat (to which he's never been elected, merely appointed) and that I am "spoiling" the election. Until I found out on May 7th that the Klaastad family income is currently derived in vast majority from the Holvey campaign, this phone response puzzled me. But this is completely over the top, when you consider what I wrote -- just like everything else in his campaign. With $35,000 in the bank on April 12, the Holvey campaign felt obliged to raise another $25,000 by May 6! Much of this money comes from the union dues of hard-working men and women. With such an absurdly overkill attitude towards money collection and disbursal, Saints preserve us if Holvey is allowed near the STATE's treasury. They sent out not one, but FOUR four-color, two-sided mailings in ONE WEEK; featuring photos of the candidate by an international swimsuit/fashion/lingerie photographer (who is currently on assignment in Bremen, Germany), and now this unprecedented attack over very, very little, with the full collusion of the OUTSPOKEN editor of the newsletter. I am, I should note, ENDORSED by the DPLC in the SAME ISSUE! See the EUGENE WEEKLY LETTER of 3-25-04 for more documentation on the outrageous behavior of the DPLC in the matter of my candidacy!
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