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Carole Lieff Drops Out of 1st District Race

Supervisor Salud Carbajal Now Running for Reelection Unopposed

Monday, May 7, 2012
By Chris Meagher (Contact)

Carole Lieff, who was taking on Salud Carbajal in his quest for reelection as 1st District Supervisor, called it quits last week. The Montecito resident who made pension liability and government worker salaries her main rallying cries, said she had enough of going it alone.

“I’d expected that when the citizenry understood what was happening — the graft, nepotism, cronyism, corruption — there’d have been a call to arms,” Lieff said in an email. “That did not happen.” She called Santa Barbara a peculiar place. “All of these rich people,” she wrote, “rich, many through mere luck with no social conscience. Now knowing that makes it a much less interesting place to me.”

At a recent candidates forum, Lieff, a self-proclaimed “economist,” “financial expert,” and “turnaround specialist,” assured voters that she would not be accepting any campaign contributions, and called the current Board of Supervisors “amateurs” and a “dog and pony show.”

Carbajal, who even with Lieff’s candidacy was considered a shoo-in to win his third term in office, said having Lieff as an opponent was a “great democratic exercise.”

“I appreciate Carole’s candidacy, which provided an opportunity to go before the voters,” he said.

Lieff’s withdrawal was too late to keep her name off the ballot, so Carbajal is keeping his campaign in motion. “I’ve never taken this for granted,” said Carbajal, who ran unopposed in 2008.

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