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23rd Assembly District Where There's Smoke [March 3, 2000, 12:30pm]    A case of political smoke and mirrors? That's what advisors to Assembly candidate Manny Diaz are saying about a late $20,000 campaign donation from the Black Leadership PAC to opponent Tony West (late contributions are posted at www.ss.ca.gov). Two days before the Black Leadership PAC cut its check to West, tobacco giant Phillip Morris conveniently contributed $20,000 to the black PAC. That's too suspicious to be a simple coincidence, Diaz propagandists argue. "He [West] is willing to do whatever it takes to get elected," grouses Diaz campaign manager Jonathan Noble, "whether it's producing slanderous campaign material or taking money from tobacco interests." Tom Sagau, West's campaign manager, emphatically denies that West, an assistant attorney general, has taken money from nicotine-pushers. "There's no credence to it at all," Sagau says. "It's just a desperate gambit by a desperate campaign that's running a deadbeat dad against an assistant attorney general." [ San Jose | MetroActive Central | Archives ]