Lesli Gooch Campaign Staff Falling Apart

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. - April 9, 2014 - PRLog -- The San Bernardino Citizens for Public Integrity issued a warning to Jeff Corless, campaign spokesperson for Lesli Gooch, late Tuesday night.

"We've never met Jeff before, but reading his remarks makes us sick. We saw the Buzzfeed piece about Lesli and Facebook, and read in horror as Jeff placed all the blame on Lesli's opponent, calling him ugly names. This is exactly the type of dirty politics that people are sick of," said Elsa Keeling, SBCPI president, referring to this article on Buzzfeed: http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/is-a-republican-congressional-candidate-buying-facebook-like.

In the Buzzfeed article, Jeff is quoted as saying, “Everybody knows Paul Chabot is a joke who plays Facebook games and attacks women – he’s total bushleague [sic] and not fit for Congress. Its [sic] completely sexist for Chabot to condone an attempt to link his female opponent to the prostitution capital of the world."

"We call on Jeff to apologize and tone it down, or bow out as Lesli's consultant," Keeling said.

Corless has a history of lashing out against his client's political opponent. On March 28, SBCPI called on Gooch to resign from the race, following revelations that she had worked as a paid Washington lobbyist for Jeffrey Burum, a real estate developer indicted on 29 public corruption counts including bribery, extortion and misappropriation of public funds. (He plead not guilty and has not been convicted). The information was verified on OpenSecrets.org, a database of lobbying and campaign contributions run by the Center for Responsive Politics.

A day later, Gooch announced on her website that she had received the endorsement of the San Bernardino County Republican Party. Within a few hours, the Los Angeles Times ran a story, "GOP candidates battling to succeed Rep. Gary Miller”, saying that Gooch’s challenger, Dr. Paul Chabot, had called on Gooch to withdraw from the race. According to the Los Angeles Times article, "Gooch campaign spokesman Jeff Corless called Chabot's statement "sour grapes by a desperate candidate" who was angry because the county GOP backed Gooch's candidacy instead of his.”

The San Bernardino Citizens For Public Integrity (SBCPI) is a community action group of citizen volunteers formed in 2010 in response to a surge in public corruption allegations around San Bernardino.