Laura Purchasing an Endorsements Chuck(le) the Mayor’s Race

The other night, someone posted something on a Facebook page, “the Lone Star Reporter: LAURA MACZKA, The Right Choice for Richardson’s Mayor”.

 

 

It presents a glowing review of Laura Maczka and no quite so glowing for Amir Omar. My first impressions were that this was a pretty good thing for Laura. But I think it might do her more harm than good in the end.

 

At first, it looks like just another endorsement from a person who has research two candidates for mayor. It also seems to be opinion and that this person’s opinion favors Laura. That is fine with me, people can come to different conclusions based on the same information. If a person wants to vote for Laura and they truly believe she is the better candidate, that is exactly what they should do, vote for her.

As I read on I noticed something else. At the end of the blog piece, there is a disclaimer, “Paid Political Advertising: Independent report and analysis for the Laura Maczka for Mayor Campaign, 301 Overcreek Dr. Richardson, Tx.” That came as a surprise once I realized the endorsement was really a paid for political ad.

I had to chuckle upon that realization. Will the surprises of this campaign never end?It appeared to be a bought and paid for piece of advertising, not a real opinion piece. So I decided to do a little bit more looking and made a phone call.

I called Amir to ask him about the guy J.B. Blocker and asked if he had ever heard of him. He said matter of fact, he does know of him and the guy actually called him back in November or December with a proposition.

For the sum of about $1500, he would put together an article favorable to Amir and post it on his blog. Amir said he declined his offer and wanted to run a more genuine campaign that did not include resorting to buying an endorsement.

It seems Laura is learning very well from previous actions of the city staff and council. Richardson has hired and uses a public relations firm for many years, Cooksey Communications, to do things like this. Richardson pays Cooksey to go out and apply for awards and certificate that city staff and leaders can point to and say, See, how good we are. We have all these awards and certificate from all these organizations.”

Resorting to buying an endorsement, I really don’t know what to call it. Is it dishonest? Is it low? Is it the right thing to do? It is just plain amusing and something I never expected from Laura, or any other city leader. Maybe it is just a sign of desperation. I really don’t know.

I think it does say something of character though. Amir Omar didn’t need to buy endorsement and given the chance to buy an endorsement, he did not. Laura did. It seems in an effort to win the election, she is capable of many things I did not expect her to be capable of.

Buying the endorsement is not illegal. It is just a tactic to try and win. So she has not really done anything really all that wrong, it just seems to be disingenuous. It is worth a good chuckle though.