The voting is over and I am very happy that Emilio Carlesimo won a Venice City Council seat over the very arrogant Ted Kozarski. God forbid that Venice elected a TV producer for a councilman after the left wing junk we see on TV. However this is not the victory that I wish to discuss; it is the defeat of Harry Walia that is so disturbing. Harry was defeated by lies, innuendo and smear tactics perpetrated by the Democrats and one fanatic who went after Harry for his race. While my friends and I were handing out campaign literature one of the Democrats who were also handing out literature for Kozarski and Bennett accused Harry of not paying the bill to the man with which he is involved in the personal law suit. It was amazing that he knew the story two days before it was printed in the news papers.  While Jim Bennett may not, as he claimed, have directly initiated the lies about Harry; he never did anything to stop them. What were these lies? Harry was an Arab, he had ties to the 9/12 terrorists and is a Muslim. Harry is of Indian birth, is a Christian and is a proud American citizen for 38 years. He has a relative in the armed force who has served two terms in Iraq and another that is applying to the Naval Academy. The other smear tactics used were to drag out an arrest for DUI in 1996 which was later dropped and a civil law suit about a repairman whose work Harry considered substandard. That case is still pending in court as that man is accused of trespassing on Harry’s property. Harry may have business law suits pending but they are part of the business world and not pertinent to the city council race.  I am not one to run around using the word racist but the person who has hounded Harry from day one and gave a comment to my original article certainly seems to qualify for that title. He concentrated on Harry shortening his Indian name but still having to use the original name on bank documents. What he failed to mention was the bank making the loan insisted on him signing both with his Americanized name and his birth name.

Has it come down to this, that the candidates that can smear their opponents the most win the race? Harry did not resort to those tactics and had to take the news media printing articles about the candidates which mentioned the above accusations on the front page but explained that they were not true or a normal course of business on something like page 6. Many people only read the first page and that is the impression of the candidate that they get. Time and time again it has been emphasized that Republicans should not smear Republicans in Primaries or other races. I would expect this from Democrats like Ted Kozarski but it should have been disavowed by someone who claims to be a Republican like Jim Bennett.