Kokkonen Denounces Cyberspace Attacks

February 8, 2010
 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:  Matt Kokkonen, 805-886-1880
                       Andrew Russo, 831-753-1419

SAN LUIS OBISPO-- 33rd Assembly District candidate Matt Kokkonen is denouncing the “scurrilous and underhanded” dissemination of e-mails in the Assembly campaign which attack the records of Republican Etta Waterfield and Democrat Hilda Zacarias.

“I was alerted to these e-mails by an employee of KCBX in San Luis Obispo over the weekend. I find such anonymous attacks distasteful and highly inappropriate,” said Kokkonen, frontrunner for the Republican nomination in the June primary. “In this cyberspace era, these kind of campaign tactics are becoming commonplace, but they are no less wrong. They are Kafkaesque.”

The e-mails Kokkonen refers to cite a blog by an “A.G. Soros” claiming Republican Waterfield and Democrat Zacarias are actually political allies in Santa Maria and accuses Waterfield of damaging the “quality of life” in Santa Maria as well as being a “liberal Republican.”

Kokkonen could only speculate on the source of these communications. “it could be anyone with a computer, I suppose. It could be this A.G. Soros whoever that is or it could have been planted by the other campaigns themselves to generate sympathy or as a pre-emptive strike on anticipated criticisms from others.”

“More likely,” continued Kokkonen, “these e-mails may be coming from Santa Maria residents unhappy with the records of Waterfield and Zacarias on issues like low-income, high-density housing for illegal aliens. A number of Santa Maria voters have expressed concerns about these issues to me.”

“As far as I’m concerned, I have directed my campaign staff to completely avoid and eschew these kind of tactics. Both Hilda and Etta have public records which are open for discussion and if my campaign believes there are issues regarding their records which are relevant to this campaign, we will bring them up publicly, not anonymously. I call on Katcho Achadjian and Fred Strong to join me in deploring this type of campaigning."

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Matt Kokkonen is a San Luis Obispo financial planner and political activist. In 2008, he was the Republican nominee for Congress in the 23rd District, receiving over 80,000 votes. Currently, he is a candidate for State Assembly in the 33rd District.