Santa Maria City Council candidate Steven Funkhouser set the new bar for city politics in 2022. And that’s not a good thing.
How low is low? You have to come up with something that sinks beneath the level of altering photographs and featuring them in the dark, gritty campaign mailers delivered to the homes of Santa Maria voters.
Oh, and throw in some classic racist Republican tropes from the 1980s while you’re at it. I thought we were past that, but apparently Funkhouser and his campaign committee members are not. They are adamant about being tough on crime, even if they crossed a pretty hard ethical line to show it!
Crime is crime, people! And ethics are, well, optional. Duh!
Incumbent Santa Maria City Councilmember Gloria Soto, who Funkhouser is challenging for her 3rd District seat, features prominently in the mailers the Funkhouser for Santa Maria City Council 2022 campaign gremlins paid for. That grim take on life includes altered images of Soto’s smiling face sidling up next to Reagan-era inspired “soft on crime” accusations. One changed a sign she was holding from “More schools, less jails,” to “More crime, less jails.” Another took a lovely little iced cake she was holding and added the phrase “Let them eat cake” to the side facing the camera.
Soto’s smiling about-to-eat-cake face was surrounded by mugshots of men with face tattoos, saying that “her irresponsible votes have placed our children and families at risk.”
At risk of what? Having Facebook images photoshopped, plopped on a glossy piece of cardstock, and shoved in voters’ mailboxes all over town? Because that’s about the only message I’m taking away from the slew of attack ads Funkhouser’s campaign has paid for.
Funkhouser’s really banking on all of those older white community members’ fear of gang-banging Latinos. What? Were there no Black men to put into the ads? Or would that dog whistle have been just a skosh too far over the line?
“We deserve a safer Santa Maria,” the mailers state.
Boy, we certainly do. One where we talk about crime and criminals without tainting the conversation with old stereotypes, racist messaging, and fearmongering. Also, maybe try being honest in your campaign mailers if you want a “safer” Santa Maria, instead of straight-up lying to the public by doctoring photographs from the internet.
It’s a really bad look. It’s a new low, a new level of low for a city struggling to combat the inequality in both its politics and policies.
What those mailers fail to address is what Funkhouser will do to help deal with youth violence and supposed increases in gang activity. What about city issues like homelessness or rent increases pricing low-income wage earners out of the city’s housing market?
Instead of informing voters, Funkhouser seems to be waging what Soto calls a “misleading and unethical” campaign, even after signing a city Code of Fair Campaign Practices promise.
Maybe this is just me (it probably is), but one of the most frustrating parts is that he won’t even return phone calls to the media to talk about his campaign, his campaign priorities, or his campaign mailers.
It makes it pretty hard to figure out what Funkhouser is all about.
And maybe that’s by design.
The Canary thinks dirty politics are trashy. Send cleansing wipes to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Nov 3-9, 2022.
