OC Political

Sacramento Mayoral Candidate Leonard Padilla,
Proudly Endorsed by Death Row’s Speed Freak Killer, Wesley Shermantine

A strange tale from over the weekend…

Sacramento Mayoral Candidate Leonard Padilla, who is one of three candidates challenging Mayor Kevin Johnson‘s re-election bid, is proudly announcing his endorsement by Wesley Shermantine, who is half of the serial killer duo known as the Speed Freak Killers and currently sits on death row.

Padilla told Sacramento’s Fox40: “When you have a guy on death row endorsing you, you have to be somewhat proud of that.”

Why does he think that?  Well, he stated, “If I go out here to the unions, or if I go to the firemen, and ask for their endorsement, they’re going to want something in return.  I mean, this man, he cannot ask for anything in return.”

Well, I guess technically, he’s right that he won’t be beholden to any special interests.

On the potential drawback of the serial killer endorsement, he said, “I don’t think it’ll have any backlash because there’s nothing about the man that’s a secret.”

That’s ridiculous.  The backlash is because of what’s known about him.

Padilla even told Fox 40 he was considering making a commercial about Serial Killer Shermantine’s endorsement.

I’m going to name the Padilla for Mayor 2012 campaign the winner of my “Dumbest Campaign Strategy Ever” award.

This is clearly a publicity stunt, but the “Any press is good press” expression has its limits.  He will definitely lose many of what few votes he had, and I’m not sure if this will attract any new business for his bail bondsman or bounty hunter operations.  I would think a bounty hunter wouldn’t want publicity.  I would also think even those seeking the services of a bail bondsman would hesitate at using someone backed by a serial killer.

(Readers, feel free to insert a bad Sacramento joke here.)

Padilla came in 58th out of 135 candidates for Governor in the 2003 recall.  Padilla came in 4th out of 4 in the 2004 Sacramento mayoral primary and came in 3rd out of 5 in the 2008 Sacramento mayoral primary (behind only Johnson and then-Mayor Heather Fargo).

I’m still waiting for the Association of Ketchup Thieves to Endorse Steve Rocco for Supervisor and the appropriate independent expenditure on behalf of Janet Nguyen by Heinz, Hunt’s, and other ketchup manufacturers.