I took some heat for posting about Democratic City Council Candidate Kevin Kim hiring Michael Tobman as a consultant given Tobman's past record of Karl Rove style tactics and recent record of being part of losing campaigns. I suppose the reason I got heat was because I quoted a Republican source in my article, though my info regarding Tobman's poor record on both ethical and efficacy grounds was based largely on my own experiences.

Well a decidedly NON-Republican source sent me a link to a Queenscrap article that, though from an anonymous source, seems easily verifiable, suggesting that in the last minute rush in a close City Council race Tobman's candidate Kevin Kim and his supporter, the Pastor of Sacred Heart RC Church in Bayside, Queens, may have violated laws regarding mixing politics and religion by a non-profit church, and may have violated Federal postal rules. Briefly, the Kim campaign sent out a mailing, paid for by his campaign, carrying the address of Sacred Heart RC Church and a message from the Pastor to his parishioners, plugging a vote for Kim. Here's the text from the Queenscrap article...go to the article to see the evidence:

"Hey Crappy,

You're not gonna believe the attached document mailed out by Friends of Kevin Kim: the Pastor of Sacred Heart RC Church in Bayside warning his flock about the pagan. And I scanned the outside, too, where it says who's responsible for the mailing. This one is a new low."

- anonymous

Well, anonymous, not only is it a new low, but making it appear that the church mailed these out to voters could have serious consequences for both the church and the candidate. It puts the church's 501c3 in jeopardy and opens up the possibility that Kim could be prosecuted for mail fraud. Federal postal rules prohibit printing an address other than your own on a piece of mail bearing your prepaid postage stamp.

So here's my point: Michael Tobman is often associated with nasty campaigns that wind up losing anyway. Kevin Kim seemed like a perfectly reasonable candidate and his Republican opponent seemed like a typical Republican, and therefore not really acceptable to me. However, Kim seems to have used some seriously nasty, potentially fraudulent tactics, with Michael Tobman as a consultant, and lost...just as I have seen happen with Tobman's campaigns in the past. And the supreme irony here is that I find these kinds of tactics far more common for Republicans nationally than Democrats, particularly the potential violations of laws requiring non-profit religious institutions to stay out of politics.

At present the only reason to connect Tobman to the potentially illegal Kevin Kim/Pastor Bronsan actions is that Tobman had recently been brought onto the Kim team at that time, so presumably was at least informed of the action. However, in order to see if Tobman had any comment I contacted him directly. He, in typically nasty Tobman fashion, refused to comment. Which of course is no reason to think any investigation that might come out of this would include Tobman. In the discussion in the Queenscrap article there are people saying that they are indeed asking for an investigation, though I notice in NYC even fairly blatantly fraudulent actions by politicians seldom get investigated, though Clarence Norman might differ with me on that point.

There is no doubt in my mind that Kim would have been a better councilman than Halloran. However, if you stoop to unethical (and potentially illegal) actions, I can't support you. And once again, Tobman's name is associated with unethical (though first time I would say potentially illegal?) actions that failed to sway voters. I suspect his credentials as a political consultant aren't faring so well these days, but then again NYC is a town where connections matter more than success, so Tobman may still be alright.