Look, I’m against lying in general. I think it’s a bad practice and leads to all sorts of personal breakdowns. Whenever I’m brought in on a media crisis one of the very first things I establish with my clients is that they should NEVER, under any circumstances, tell a provable lie. By that, I mean a lie of simple fact, rather than something that can be argued as an opinion or interpretation. Don’t say you were somewhere you weren’t. Don’t say you didn’t empty out the bank account if you did. And, definitely, don’t run for public office using a bogus home address, just because you don’t want to actually live in the district you purport to represent.
Former L.A. City Council member Richard Alarcon is likely to go to jail over the simple fact that he was unwilling to live inside the district he represented, or to run for election in the district where he lived. It was a seemingly small lie, and he got away with it for years. I bet it seemed like a minor detail and he felt like he’d adequately covered his ass by owning a home there that sat empty.
Bad idea.
The Original Spin 