Ceoffe/Deutsch Whisper Shout Campaign Against Banahasky

Loyal readers of the Pittsburgh City Paper already know that the race to replace retiring magistrate Eugene Zielmanski in Lawrenceville's 6th and 9th wards has already garnered more than the normal amount of attention for this office.

Loyal readers of this blog already know that we have a lot of ugliness happening this election cycle.

The latest nastiness is accusations that Tony Ceoffe ally and Ward 9 Chair, Ronald Deutsch, has been going around Lawrenceville intimidating people displaying Susan Banahasky yard signs and telling voters in the district that she's -- horrors of horrors -- a Jew! (See here and here.) Ceoffe and Banahasky are running for Zielmanski's office.

For the record, she's Catholic (click here to see that her mother was honored by Diocese of Pittsburgh for her service to the Catholic Church). And, yes, I feel almost dirty having to prove that she's not a Jew -- as if there actually was something wrong if she were -- but obviously people are playing to the bigotry (perceived or real) of some in the community.

Deutsch and Banahasky have a history. He challenged her election petitions:

Bodack is a Ceoffe ally, and he owns the building that houses Lawrenceville United. (Bodack's father, a former state senator, owns the building containing the magistrate's office where Ceoffe hopes to work.) Meanwhile, an attorney for Dowd's 2007 council campaign, Isobel Storch, represented Banahasky in response to an aborted attempt to challenge her election petitions. And who originally filed that challenge? Ward 9 chair Ronald Deutsch, who sits on the neighborhood fireworks committee -- for which LU handles the money.

And, as Pittsburgh is a small town when it comes to politics, it's easy to play Six Degrees of Ronnie Deutsch:

Deutsch was an aide to ousted Councilman Len Bodack.

Patrick Dowd, who won Bodack's seat, had questions about Deutsch seemingly performing campaign duties on City payroll time (again over ballot issues) during his City Council race.

The Post-Gazette lumped Deutsch together with former Councilman Jeff Koch and other ousted politicians who landed jobs in the Ravenstahl Administration after being turned out by the public.

So here's my nearly annual plea when it comes to Pittsburgh primaries:

Don't reward bad behavior!
Vote for Susan Banahasky, http://susanformagistrate.com
.