Scott Baugh, the former California Assembly Republican leader and Orange County GOP chairman, should feel honored.
The re-election campaign for Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-Cambridge Analytica) put out its first mailer sliming a candidate seeking the incumbent’s coastal Orange County congressional seat.
However, the mailer’s target is not one of the six Democrats who have been hammering Rohrabacher all year. Instead, it’s Dana’s former longtime pal Baugh, who only officially entered the race on March 9.
The address-label side of the mailer includes a large photo of Baugh, a smaller one of a cackling Hillary Clinton and these lines: “Lobbyist Scott Baugh Supports Amnesty,” “Funded by Never Trumpers” and “The Lobbyist Money Can Buy.” An “Approved” stamp indicates supposed Baugh support for “illegals.” Instructions along the bottom point voters to “Learn more at BoughtBaugh.com.” That site features the same information and an anti-Baugh video commercial that is also posted on YouTube.
The mailer’s flipside has a large headline with the words “Meet Scott Baugh and Learn How He Made and Raised Millions,” as well as a black-and-white photo of Baugh with a slight smile and a hand on his chin. The image is laid over stacks of U.S. currency, with the binder around the top stack indicating “$10,000.” Along the right side of the page are Baugh’s supposed positions on Trump (against), taxpayer benefits for the undocumented (for), amnesty for illegal immigrants (for), pollution cap and trade and higher taxes (for), and the “D.C. swamp” (ready to join it).
A black box with small white type lists the sources Rohrabacher for Congress used to determine those Baugh positions. Then, along the bottom, in large type it reads, “Scott Baugh” and “The Lobbyist Money Can Buy.”
The one positive for Baugh is Rohrabacher for Congress used fairly good photos of the latecomer to the 48th congressional district race. There is, of course, a treasure trove of goofy Rohrabacher images, many of which have appeared in OC Weekly and/or on ocweekly.com, with some having been shot by our own R. Scott Moxley.
But taking the gloves off is stunning when you consider how close Baugh and Rohrabacher used to be. Make that Rohrabachers: Dana’s wife, Rhonda, pleaded guilty to falsifying nominating papers for Baugh’s campaign before he was first elected to the Assembly in November 1995. The candidate was not charged.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.