Jacquie Atkinson: Let the backpedaling begin

Marine Jacquie Atkinson will formally announce her candidacy for the 52nd District Congressional seat tonight at Heat on Park Boulevard. What has she been doing to prepare; busily trying to sanitize her personal Facebook and Twitter accounts and accusing Congressman Scott Peters Campaign with generating fake tweets in her name.

A little bird tweeted and this flew into my box; an image of a retweet reputedly from Jacquie Atkinson of the Ted Cruz announcement. Ms. Atkinson has wonderful, newly minted Twitter and Facebook accounts associated with her Congressional race, but her former accounts are as hard to find as a self-accepting transgender person at a Republican Party function. So since I was not able to verify the tweet, San Diego LGBT Weekly did not run the story.

Then Ms. Atkinson sent out a press release entitled “Atkinson Blasts Rep. Peters for “Dirty Tricks.” Voters, we have been down this path before. Atkinson’s mentor Carl DeMaio implicated Congressman Peters’ 2014 campaign  of orchestrating a break-in at DeMaio’s campaign office. It was later discovered that DeMaio campaign staffers were the focus of  the burglary investigation. DeMaio walked back the implication. Now Atkinson is using the same tactic. But this time Atkinson is leaving herself absolutely no wiggle room. She has directly implicated Congressman Peters “camp” of creating a fake Twitter account to smear her.

Atkinson’s press release says “Congressman Scott Peters’ campaign has resorted to smear tactics once again. While Congressional candidate Jacquie Atkinson was in the Middle East this past week, the Scott Peters camp created a false twitter handle @CA52Jacquie to impersonate Atkinson and then began smearing Atkinson by falsely accusing her of authoring tweets. Atkinson’s official twitter handle is @VoteAtkinson – not @CA52Jacquie.” Ms Atkinson stated “This despicable action is typical of the Peters camp. While I was overseas in the Middle East working to keep our country safe, Congressman Peters was at home cooking up ways to lie about my record and smear me online.”

I think Ms. Atkinson is quite clear with her statement. Given that clarity, she needs to provide the press and the voter proof of her claim. The voter deserves to know the truth and Ms. Atkinson is the only one who seems to have proof of what she espouses. Without proof, to make such an accusation about Congressman Peters and his camp is unconscionable. Ms. Atkinson, please provide the documentation to back-up your claims. Anything less, you should look in the mirror and utter the words “despicable me.”

Given the people with which Ms. Atkinson has surrounded herself, it is not a surprise that even before her first campaign event Atkinson is making unsubstantiated allegations.  She has reputedly hired many of  DeMaio’s former congressional race staffers, including Tommy Knepper, who was the campaign manager in DeMaio’s race against Congressman Peters. You might remember Knepper; he wrote a memo on how to detect opposition spies, known as trackers, at DeMaio events. Knepper suggested that if a person was Black, young at a Saturday morning event, or simply young, it was an indication they might be trackers for the Peters’ campaign.  The paranoia that was a theme in the DeMaio campaign is already rearing its ugly head in Atkinson’s run. I could be wrong and Atkinson could produce the proof. If you’ve got it Jacquie, please, please, let me get the scoop.

I have a feeling that no proof  for the unsubstantiated allegations against  Congressman Peters’ camp will be forthcoming. If so, Ms. Atkinson you are off to quite a remarkable start. Let the backpedaling begin.