The Pacheco Crying Game

In response to Mayor Frank's post I thought I'd elevate a post from our comments section.

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Why Returning From the Dead Will Be a Test of Character for Pacheco By Tony Castro Political Columnist -Nick Pacheco is hurting, and he doesn't understand not really why he was booted out of office after being the new kid on City Halls political block just four years ago. You tell me, do you really think I have a political future left?he asks. After losing this race? Or do you think I still have a political future because I lost to Antonio [Villaraigosa], the political messiah? The doesn't seem to sit well. But Pacheco is hurting. He is still trying to come to grips with becoming the first incumbent Los Angeles City Councilman ousted in a primary election in modern history. He chafes at reading the post-mortems, especially those that report Villaraigosa's election triumph claims of having overcome what he has called the sleaziest campaign ever in Los Angeles and also boasting that he did it without ever having gotten down in the political gutter himself.Pacheco doesn't believe any of that. He denies that his campaign engaged in any dirty politics and asserts that it was Villaraigosa's campaign that indulged in last-minute attack mailers. Why don't you [in the new media] call him on that? Why do you allow him to get away saying that? he demands to know. Mostly, though, Pacheco can't understand how it came down to this: Getting not even 40 per cent of the vote and losing in what, for primary election purposes, wound up a 56 percent of the vote landslide for Villaraigosa, the former Assembly speaker and now the prince of not only the Eastside but of the city as well. Nick Pacheco is hurting, and he is looking for some kind of political Ben-Gay to salve his wounds. Last week, he wrote United Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta, demanding an apology for a political mailer sent out by the UFW on Villaraigosa's behalf that accused Pacheco of a long laundry list of sleazy politics. I am writing because my family, especially my parents, were extremely hurt by your personal attacks against me during my recent re-election campaign, he wrote.Unfortunately for Pacheco, he is just now perhaps realizing the depth of the resentment he incurred for the controversial political mailers sent to voters last November by his longtime friend Ricardo A. Torres II that attacked Villaraigosa and his family in a manner that was roundly decried as some of the dirtiest tactics in the history of Los Angeles politics.Those mailers cornered Pacheco into a niche of the city's political consciousness from which he may never escape, no matter how much he protests as he did in the letter to Huerta.In the letter, Pacheco replies to a handful of allegations with denials that hide behind cleverly used buffers, such as laying the blame for the November attack mailers purely on Torres when few doubt that Pacheco was completely blameless.But Pacheco insists. He also blamed the infamous Gloria Morina telephone scam on another friend, Martin GutieRuiz. That was the 2001 mayoral campaign prank in which a woman pretending to be Supervisor Gloria Molina placed calls to Latino voters criticizing Villaraigosa and urging votes instead for Rep. Xavier Becerra, another Latino primary opponent. The calls were traced to a phone bank owned by Pacheco, though a district attorney's investigation failed to turn up enough evidence for charges. But then when are politicians, except the inept as well as corrupt ones in suburban cities, ever charged with any kind of crimes? Pacheco protests with the innocence of the Boy Scout handle that was given to him during his 1999 election. He may well still be the Boy Scout, but his pals Torres and GutieRuiz sure as heck aren't. He should know that former prosecutors have no business hanging out with high-tech gang-bangers in business suits.Mostly, though, Pacheco fails to realize that the unspoken retort from anyone hearing his complaints is that perhaps he reaped what he sowed.Besides, no one wants to hear it now. The only thing more pitiful than a loser's wails and moaning are a sore losers wails and moaning...