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I spoke last week with Katherine H. Smith, the Anaheim Union High School District Trustee who recently filed to run for the 47th Congressional District, in the GOP primary.
Smith called to correct a few things in our introductory post about her. But she also had something very interesting to say.
Smith said she would not be raising any money for her campaign. Her intention is to buy a ballot statement with her own money.
Ballot statements are useful – and are sometimes a key to victory, but in a crowded field, with two Viet candidates including Assemblyman Van Tran and businessman/former U.S. Marine Quang Pham, you would think that a little bit of advertising woudn’t hurt Smith’s chances.
A few years ago SAUSD Trustee Rosie Avila raised about $15,000 but her campaign manager, Tim Whitacre, didn’t spend any of it. She ended up losing in the primary to Tan Nguyen, who later became infamous for sending a letter to Latino voters trying to scare them out of voting. Nguyen later appointed Avila to the OC GOP Central Committee as his alternate.
Smith also wanted me to let our readers know that she has been active in the movement to decriminalize drugs for many years. She is an ally of Judge Jim Gray, who has authored a couple of books on the subject. That stance will help her with Libertarians, but it hurt Gray when he ran against Loretta, awhile ago, in 1998. Perhaps now that the drug war is an even bigger failure it might help Smith to hold such a position.
Gustavo Arellano pointed out in my last post that Smith in the past has had views that are anti-Latino. That won’t help her in the very diverse 47th district. Even if she prevails, she will face a popular incumbent, Loretta Sanchez, who is fairly moderate and is in fact a former Republican.
In fact, Sanchez has taken a lot of heat over the past year from Latino activists for refusing to support the Dream Act, which would provide a path to citizenship for Latino students.
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