Chu versus Cedillo contest is getting ugly!

Did Judy Chu and Emanuel Pleitez (pictured above on the left) conspire to bring down Gil Cedillo (pictured above on the right)?

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The contest between Judy Chu and Gil Cedillo, for the 32nd congressional district seat, in East Los Angeles, has taken a turn for the nasty.  According to Calitics, a liberal blog, Cedillo has launched an attack against another Latino candidate, Emanuel Pleitez, “using Facebook photos to build a narrative of Pleitez as a scary drunken gang-lover who parties with white women.”

To make matters worse, Cedillo has accused Pleitez of throwing gang signs at an event – but it turns out that Pleitez was at a “Voto Latino” event and the sign he threw, along with actress Rosario Dawson, was the “Voto Latino” hand signal.  So Cedillo accused Pleitez of acting like a gang banger, even though Pleitez was at an event trying to register young Latinos to vote.

But wait, there is more to the story.  It turns out that Pleitez’ campaign manager is pals with Chu’s campaign manager – so the theory is that Pleitez entered this race in order to split the Latino vote and hurt Cedillo so that Chu can prevail.

But Cedillo may have done something similar, as Betty Tom Chu, a Republican Monterey Park City Councilwoman, entered the race late, according to Calitics, and no doubt she will cause some confusion as she has the same last name as Judy Chu.

Maybe the voters in that district should forget about all these crooked politicos and vote for the Libertarian, Chris Agrella?

Agrella’s message sure makes sense – Lower Taxes, Controlled Spending, Personal Choice.  I doubt Chu and Cedillo would agree with that platform.

One anon commenter had this to say about Agrella over at the Calitics blog:

Of course, one could simply avoid the dramatics in the Democrat and Republican camps and simply vote Agrella into the spot on May 19 since he’s one of the finalists already anyway.   Chris Agrella is a blue-collar man who knows the district, knows the federal issues, and is NOT a career politician. http://www.Agrella4Congress.org

BTW, why would anybody vote to elect Judy Chu or Cedillo to Congress after all they’ve done to screw up California?

UPDATE:

Nativo Lopez sent a mass email supporting Cedillo to his MAPA (Mexican American Political Association) list today. Here is his message:

May 16, 2009

Greetings!

Senator Gil Cedillo for Congress

We spend many months persuading the Latino community for their vote in the upcoming elections of May 19. This is the last week for that election. All of our forces will be put to use in the 32nd congressional district, the candidates are Senator Gil Cedillo and Judy Chu. Our goal is to sing up 100 to 150 volunteers (members, family, friends) to help mobilized the Latino voters during the last three days before the may 19 (Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday).

These are the schedule dates, time, and place.

All the people that confirm to be in the campaign for Senator Gil Cedillo will work from 9:30 to 2:00 pm in the 10808 Valley Mall El Monte, CA 91731, 626-454- 2601

Please report with Nativo Lopez as soon as you arrive in the office. We need to provide you with a MAPA name tag.

Nativo Lopez-Vigil
National President