Abstract

Beat the Devil

The article focuses on politician Doug Bosco, a Democrat running who was running for state elections for a fifth term. Bosco's most pertinacious foe throughout most of his incumbency was Mendocino County's newspaper "Anderson Valley Advertiser," the Boonville, California-based weekly with a spirited anticorporate outlook and readers aroused from political narcolepsy by real language. Bosco not only faced Republican, Frank Riggs, but also Darlene Comingore of the Peace and Freedom Party. Comingore was ignored for most of her campaign by the local press, including the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, but got plenty of ink from the Advertiser, which continued to savage the errant Bosco. She ended up with 31,505 votes, draining enough support from Bosco to give Riggs a victory by nearly 2,000 votes.