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23rd Assembly District (San Jose) Deadbeat Diaz [March 6, 2000, 2:00pm]    When reports surfaced during the 1994 city council campaign that candidate Manny Diaz had missed more than $6,000 worth of child support payment six years earlier, his most recent ex-wife, Maria, came to the rescue. Maria Diaz wrote a letter to the Mercury News, defending her ex-husband: "Manny has been a responsible and active father to our son, Marcos. I find the introduction of my divorce into a political campaign to be an invasion of my and my family's privacy." Manny Diaz went on to win the city council election, thanks, in no small part, to the graciousness of his ex. Now, Diaz is running for Assembly and his spotty child-support payment record has once again become an issue. This weekend voters received a hit piece paid for by Diaz's chief Democratic rival, Tony West, highlighting two missed child-support payments to Maria in 1996 totaling $1064.72. The court ordered that the money Diaz owed come directly out of his city council paychecks. The same day the deadbeat-dad hit-piece landed, voters also received a "personal" letter from Diaz's other ex-wife, Ofelia, condemning the latest round of personal attacks. "Manny and I have had our differences in the past," the letter reads, "but let me assure you that he has met all his obligations as a father to our children." The rub, of course, is that the latest attacks have nothing to do with Diaz's first marriage to Ofelia, with whom Diaz has two grown children. The missed support payments were for Diaz's youngest son--the one he sired with Maria. But many voters won't realize this because the West campaign blacked out Maria's name on court documents featured in the mailer "to protect the privacy of those involved." Thus, a West adviser grumbles, people will think Ofelia is the ex-wife anonymously referred to in the mailer and, moreover, that she is excusing Diaz for the late child support payments. Diaz campaign manager Jonathan Noble acknowledges that the candidate asked Maria to sign a letter defending her ex-husband again, but she refused. "She was outraged, but she was uncomfortable having a letter published," Noble says. "She wanted to protect her family's privacy." A quick footnote: A day before the hit-piece hit mailboxes, the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council sent a mailer on Diaz's behalf boasting, "Manny Diaz has always made children his top priority." [ San Jose | MetroActive Central | Archives ]