Bob Wieckowski, Peter Kuo

STATE SENATE | 10TH DISTRICT | A day after Assemblymember Bob Wieckowski cruised to an eight-point win in the June primary, his campaign was already picking a fight with his November opponent, Peter Kuo, while erroneously raising from the dead a beloved conservative columnist.

In a press release last week from Wieckowski’s campaign, it references a quote offered by Kuo that is critical of the state’s ranking as 47th in the country in per-pupil spending.

However, the campaign mistakenly attributes the article to “conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart.” Except, Breitbart died of a heart attack in 2012 at the age of 43. The story, instead, appears on the conservative news site, Breitbart.com.

Still dead: Andrew Breitbart

“I must have been misquoted in that article,” said Kuo on Monday. “First, I’ve never spoken with Mr. Breitbart, as Assemblyman Wieckowski claims I have—it would be rather difficult for me to do so being that he passed away two years ago.”

On the subject of school spending, Wieckowski said he was elected in the midst of the recent recession when budget cuts to education were made by the Legislature, but additional funding has since returned along with an uptick in the economy. “We need to be spending more on students, not less,” he said.

Kuo, though, maintains the state needs better results from the amount of money it spends on educating students. “It’s unfortunate Assemblyman Wieckowski and his Democratic colleagues in the legislature, who have controlled the state budget process for the last several decades, like to place blame on candidates running to reform their policies that have failed our children.”

The issue of education, in fact, may be Kuo’s trump card during the November election. His campaign caught fire shortly after the State Senate passed a constitution amendment in late January (SCA-5) essentially overturning Proposition 209, which ended affirmative action in the college application process and state contracts.

The Assembly shelved the bill, but not before Kuo and other Republicans used the uproar, particularly among those in Asian American communities, as a significant wedge issue. Wieckowski supports affirmative action, but questioned SCA-5 during the June primary. The 10th State Senate District also has a large Asian American demographic, which could favor Kuo.