Diary of a Mad County

Monday, Oct. 30
According to FBI figures released today, St. Louis is the most dangerous city in America. The No. 2 city St. Louis beat out for the title? Uh-huh: Detroit.

Tuesday, Oct. 31
Happy Halloween (or Harvest Day if you're a born-again Christian, or the One Day We See Any Residuals if you're a member of Oingo Boingo). And apparently it's a very good day for Otto Bade, a write-in candidate for the state Senate in the 34th District. He's been getting some unexpected help from the campaign of Lou Correa, unexpected because Correa is the Democratic candidate running for the very same seat. Christian Berthelsen of the Times reports today that Californians United, which spent nearly $200,000 to support Correa in the primary, spent about $30,000 on two Bade mailers that portray him as more conservative than the Republican candidate for the seat, Lynn Daucher. One of them called Bade the "official Republican write-in candidate." It's all very nasty and underhanded and the kind of stuff we expect—as is Correa's reaction, which is to deny any knowledge of any of this. As we saw with the Tan Nguyen Show, this is the first stage of political underhandedness. Next is to blame someone in your office who, you say, acted without your knowledge, then comes blaming the media, your opponent and finally, depending on your party affiliation, Bill Clinton or Karl Rove.

slowery@ocweekly.com