Fighting traffic, meeting Barry Goldwater

I'm a sucker for campaign mailers and the things that politicians or aspiring politicians say on them -- particularly when it's about fixing traffic.

So it was somewhat puzzling when a colleague brought in a mailer she had received from Sonny Sardo, who on Tuesday was trounced by a 47% margin by incumbent David Dreier in the Republican primary for the 26th Congressional district.

One side of his campaign flier has a box labeled "Relieving Traffic Congestion" under which the following appears:

"Sonny Sardo supports continued funding for the Alameda Corridor East Project and the Gold Line Foothill Extension."

OK, fine. He wants to fix traffic. Who doesn't? But if you flip the flier over, there's a photo of Sardo, right, with a guy and the following caption:

"Barry Goldwater and Sonny Sardo meet to discuss the restoration of the Republican Party to its fundamental principles."

What makes it fun is that the dude in the photo isn't the guy most people identify with the name "Barry Goldwater" -- that is, the five-term, conservative Senator from Arizona who ran for president in '64, right.

So I called Sardo this morning, he promptly called back and I asked him if it's a little misleading to have that caption when trying to win the trust of voters to do big things -- like fix traffic.

“It’s funny you mention that,” Sardo said. “I had two calls on that out of all the mailings, and they said maybe you should have put ‘Barry Goldwater Jr.’ on there."

But of course: That’s Barry Goldwater Jr. in the photo, son of the late senator and seven-term Congressman who left office in 1983. D'oh! Sardo said they're not close friends, but that he knows the junior Goldwater.

“If you have a strong Republican background, I can guarantee that 99% of the folks know who that was,” added Sardo, who also said that the mailer was mailed mostly to Republican voters.

“If I was at the mall passing out fliers that would be a stupid mailer to put out,” he said. “The only thing I would have changed at all is [making the caption] Barry Goldwater Jr.”

So there you go. And to Sardo: better luck next election, sir.

--Steve Hymon

Photo of flier: Steve Hymon / Los Angeles Times