Lauzen pulled the same stunt on me when I ran for state senate against him last year. He had a guy call my house saying he was conducting a “survey.” The questions were so outside the realm of ANY survey I had ever participated in and I was very quickly able to see Senator Do-Little’s hand in this. When I called the “survey taker” on his subterfuge, he started screaming and cursing me. Let me tell you, the Christian Right can cuss like sailors when they want to.

http://www.ja.org/about/about_newsitem.asp?StoryID=435

No wonder so many people think they can lie . . . so many of the kids grow up thinking it is OK.

They apparently figure anything goes since they are on the “right” side of every issue, and don’t get that their mere presence on a campaign disqualifies Lauzen in the minds of many in this city. Meanwhile, we will never know whether Zahm’s petition challenge against Michael Dilger is legit or just standard operating procedure to drain the resources of the opposition.

I’ve heard (but have not seen yet) that Lauzen’s campaign literature is nothing but a family photo album with every “values” cliche in the book. Meaning, he’s got nothing to work with even though he must have some sort of state senate record.

I would totally testify under oath that all of that happened as the truth as I heard it. I typed all this up soon after it happened when I could remember it the best. My guess is that all of it (misrepresenting a survey company) is probably just right under what campaign practices consider legal, and there was nothing illegal about misrepresenting a survey company or attempting to mislead a voter about the alleged fake survey. The man admitted to working for Lauzen so I personally consider the alleged fake survey an unethical dirty trick and a LIE.

Note: Of those only Republican choices, Mayor Burns would be an easy choice. Both Lauzen and Oberweis left off mentioning anything about Iraq on their campaign materials and their Web sites as of the last time I checked them. I looked at the campaign Web site of Mayor Burns; I saw nothing that made me angry. It is my opinion that both Lauzen and Oberweis disrespected our fine military by ignoring their sacrifices made in Afghanistan and Iraq by leaving off any reference to those wars on their Web sites or in their campaign literature. If the sacrifices our military are making are somehow unworthy of mention by candidates, then those candidates are completely unworthy of serving anywhere in the federal government. While anti-war protestors receive criticism for letting our troops down, that false logic pales in comparison to completely ignoring those troops altogether, something Lauzen and Oberweis both did in their literature and Web sites. It is my opinion that any candidate who has the audacity to ignore our military is unworthy of serving in any capacity at the federal level.

My questions to Lauzen’s campaign are this:

How is having a campaign worker argue with a voter a good plan?

So is the Lauzen campaign aware of the tactics someone is using in his name? And, just what will you do about it?

If Lauzen is such a fabulous candidate, why resort to dirty tricks so soon?

How can voters trust Lauzen when at least one man working for him attempted to mislead a voter in a very deliberate way?

It does not matter if Lauzen’s crew directly or indirectly hired that man; that man’s behavior becomes a reflection of Lauzen. Lauzen can publicly repudiate the misleading tactics for the alleged fake survey and the campaign worker who argued with a voter.

My questions to those who endorsed Lauzen already are this:

Do you approve of such tactics, too? Will you repudiate any attempts to mislead voters?

My comments to other voters are these:

Unless the voters stand up and say that misleading dirty tricks are unacceptable, then this kind of behavior will continue. I will stand up and say:

I WILL NOT TOLERATE ANY PURPOSEFUL AND DELIBERATE LIES AND MISLEADING STATEMENTS FROM ANY CANDIDATE, ANY CAMPAIGN WORKER, OR ON ANY CAMPAIGN LITERATURE. Period.

The Constitution begins with “We, the People . . .” Unless We the People take back our government by just saying “no” to lies and dirty tricks, then business will continue as usual and we will continue to wallow in the mudslinging.