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Pedro Acre, A
Puppet in the Making
by Tom Duggan
Until last week School
Committeeman Michael Sweeney was the front runner to
challenge mayor Patty Dowling in the coming November
election. And until last week, Pedro Acre had been a
strong supporter of Michael Sweeney’s mayoral
campaign.
Coincidentally, the day before Mike Sweeney dropped out
of the mayors race, Mr. Acre told Rumbo editor Dalia Diaz
that Eagle Tribune editor Steve Lambert had called him to
recruit him to run for mayor. He told the same story to
several leaders of the Hispanic community. Now there are
two possibilities here, either Acre is lying or the
meddling of Tribune editors in Lawrence politics is much
worse than even I had ever imagined.
For the record I happen to believe Mr. Acre was called by
Steve Lambert and I also believe that Mr. Acre is a
political whore. Though Mr. Sweeney refused to talk about
the Pedro Acre situation, those in Sweeney’s
campaign have been saying for weeks that Acre was trying
to recruit them to jump ship and work on his campaign for
mayor "when Mike Sweeney drops out." The
problem is, Mike Sweeney was not out of the race and had
only contemplated dropping out.
Enter Eagle Tribune editor Steve Lambert. Whether the
call from Lambert to recruit Acre came the day before
Sweeney dropped out of the race or weeks earlier is
anyone’s guess. But the way Acre had been portrayed
in the Tribune since the "surprise"
announcement of Acre’s intentions to run show that
he is clearly the favorite of our meddling Tribune.
Now look, I support various candidates from time to time.
But I am a columnist. I am not a reporter and I am
certainly not an editor. Everyone who reads my columns
knows where I stand because I do not hide my opinions or
my intentions when it comes to politicians and political
campaigns. I believe it’s most important for people
to know where you are coming from when you write for the
public or advocate certain issues or candidates.
But the Tribune has done something here which is most
egregious. For the editor of the Tribune to be secretly
prompting the campaign supporter of a mayoral candidate
to betray confidence and sabotage the campaign is the
worst case of political terrorism I have seen in years.
And though Mike Sweeney says he has dropped out of the
race because of a job offer, I have been in this business
long enough to know better. I was shocked when I leaned
that the Tribune’s Rumbo clone newspaper "el
Bridge-o" was first to break the story that Sweeney
was out of the race. After all, being Mike’s friend
I would have thought I would get the story first. And I
was even more shocked when I read Acre’s comments in
the Tribune about his "friend" saying that he
had been approached by a group of people
"disappointed in Mike’s wavering."
What he didn’t say, or I should say what the tribune
didn’t print, was that this group of people were the
editors and employees of the Eagle Tribune as well as the
supporters of Mike Sweeney that Acre had convinced Mike
was wavering. I called Sweeney to ask why he didn’t
give the story to Rumbo and what had happened with Mr.
Acre.
"I’m simply not going to comment on Pedro, he
is a decent guy and I deeply appreciate the support he
has given me. I’m sure he would make a good mayor if
he runs," was all Sweeney would say on the matter. I
guess he was just showing more class than the man he
thinks is his friend, because Mr. Acre has been
undermining Sweeney and his campaign, bad mouthing him
since early March. Note to Mike Sweeney: Padro Acre is
not your friend!
This past Sunday, Tribune editor Steve Lambert wrote a
cute little editorial lauding Acre and even sending a few
accolades in Mike Sweeney’s direction. Well, why
not? The damage is done and Sweeney is no longer a threat
now that he is out of the race. There is no doubt in my
mind that Acre will be the puppet candidate for the
Tribune in the coming election. And there is even less
doubt in my mind that they will endorse Acre in either
"el Bridge-o" or the Tribune daily paper.
In his editorial Steve Lambert laughingly portrayed Acre
as a viable candidate saying that there was a
"buzz" in the community about Acre. The only
buzz I have heard about Pedro Acre is "who is
he?" and "where has he been?"
No one knows better than I do how viscous Lawrence
politics can be. Mr. Lambert himself addressed the issue
of dirty politics in his veiled editorial. And he is
right. Lawrence politics is viscous. But the reason it is
so viscous is because we have editors at the Tribune who
try to indoctrinate their readers instead of objectively
informing them. We have a daily paper which meddles in
the running of our city and the honest hard working
legitimate campaigns of city residents.
It’s clear now that the Tribune is simply not
content with painting certain politicians the way they
want you to see them. No, no, now we have evidence that
they are actively controlling the election process. If we
believe Mr. Acre that the Tribune editor called to
recruit him for mayor while Sweeney was still in the race
we must also ask ourselves a very serious question. If
Mr. Acre becomes the next mayor of Lawrence, will he be
an independent free thinking mayor who will do what he
believes is best for Lawrence? Or will he be yet another
puppet for the editors of the Eagle Tribune?
Given the despicable behavior and apparent disloyalty
Acre displayed with Mike Sweeney it isn’t hard to
answer that question. You know and I know that he will be
Steve Lamberts little puppet. That’s the bad news.
The good news is that no one knows who Padro Acre is and
he really doesn’t have a snowballs chance in hell of
winning the mayors race. He never did. And Steve Lambert
knows that. Pedro Acre has given the Tribune the best
gift anyone could possibly give them. His political back
stabbing drove Mike Sweeney out of the mayors race. And
everyone knows that the Tribune has been gunning for
Sweeney since he refused to railroad Mae Gaskins.
Steve Lambert should be ashamed of himself if Mr. Acre is
telling the truth. And if he is not, Mr. Acre has shown
even more evidence of his untrustworthiness and lack of
integrity. Either way, the tax payers of Lawrence suffer
again at the hands of ruthless political hacks and a
meddling daily newspaper hell bent on controlling our
city instead of letting our citizens control our own
destiny.
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