By Doug Porter
After getting trounced in the 2012 elections, San Diego Republicans, led by Tony Krvaric, vowed to get into the next election cycle early and often with support and endorsements.
Just this week they’ve announced a list of official party candidate endorsements for the 2014 elections. The roll call for the already blessed includes mostly incumbent Congressional, State Senate and Assembly members, County and Local officials, along with contenders for ‘key seats’. Chris Cate, candidate for the open seat in San Diego’s officially non-partisan City Council District 6 race is among those receiving the party’s backing.
From the GOP Press release:
Chairman Tony Krvaric stated “With Democratic scandals on the federal level, out of control spending on the state level, and a destructive Mayor Filner on a local level, Republicans are offering a return to original American principles of limited government, fiscal responsibility, delivering the core services of government, and a focus on small business and entrepreneurship to restore an economy for all to participate in.”
“We are proud of our 2014 team and encourage all San Diegans to take a fresh look at our candidates,” Krvaric concluded.
Noticeably absent from that list is Carl DeMaio, who’s bounced back from his fall defeat in the Mayoral contest with an aggressive campaign aimed at unseating Congressman Scott Peters in the 52nd District.
SDGLN.com quoted candidate DeMaio’s May 30th announcement:
“I see myself as a ‘new generation Republican’ who wants to challenge the party to focus on pocket-book, economic and quality of life issues in a more positive and inclusive way, rather than issues that are frankly none of the government’s business in the first place,”’ DeMaio said.
National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Greg Waldon is touting DeMaio as a top 5 pick-up opportunity, based on GOP polls showing DeMaio with a 10 point lead over Peters – the best polling numbers in the country for any challenger.
Given that DeMaio carried the 52nd District with 58% of the vote during the mayoral contest last year, one would think garnering the endorsement of the local GOP would be a no-brainer. But it’s not.
It’s possible the local GOP endorsement is simply being withheld so it can be trumpeted in a manner giving candidate DeMaio maximum media visibility. Or perhaps Congressional races are subject to additional scrutiny in the smoke filled back rooms adjacent to Tony Krvaric’s GOP headquarters/financial planning operation.
Or maybe it’s because DeMaio’s not buying into the strategy of making ObamaCare the central issue of 2014 House contests. Witness this bit of insight from Brian Brady via SDRostra:
San Diegans will be paying much higher health insurance premiums next year. That ain’t good for Scott Peters.
Here’s why it ain’t good for Peters — he owns ObamaCare now. Despite all of his posturing as a centrist, Peters had an opportunity to repeal this tax and work for meaningful health care reform. But Peters put health insurance company profits above his constituents’ well being. He voted to implement the largest tax hike on the American people. We might as well call it PetersCare now.
Three years later, more Americans dislike PetersCare than like it. House Republicans know this, too. If PetersCare was popular, Republicans wouldn’t hold votes to try and repeal it. Each and every time the House Republicans hold this vote, out-of-the-mainstream Congressmen, like Peters, have to reaffirm their commitment to locking in insurance company profits on the backs of their voters
I’m guessing the above refers to Peter’s refusal to play along with House Republicans in their recent effort to repeal Obamacare for the 37thtime. As for the ‘meaningful heath care reform’ part, sorry guys, no such bill exists.
It’s all about the ‘no’ votes for Republicans. And it appears, for the time being at least, they’re saying ‘no’ to Carl DeMaio. (h/t Dave Rice)
UPDATE: Since a couple of places have linked to this column, with one of them quoting Tony Krvaric saying these endorsements are only for the June 2014 primary, I’d like to remind you all to go back and read the GOP press release quoted above. What are they going to call their November endorsements? “The Super-Duper 2014 GOP team”? “Tony’s November Baloney”?
What’s in a (Racist) Name?
credit: tumblr
Today Luntz Global, the Alexandria, VA based strategy shop run by Republican messaging guru Frank Luntz, is conducting football focus groups. Participants are being paid $100 to share their opinions about professional football and, specifically, the Washington Redskins, the NFL franchise embroiled in controversy and a federal trademark lawsuit involving its name.
Facing a pending lawsuit (Blackhorse v. Pro-Football, Inc.) that may deprive the Washington football franchise of the millions of dollars associated with federally trademarked rights and a call by ten members of Congress last month to change the team name, this is an issue that is finally coming to a head after years of simmering resentment.
National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell’s response addressed to Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) and Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN), the co-chairs of the Congressional Native American Caucus would seem to indicate a lack of willingness to even negotiate the issue.
The Commissioner’s response that the team name remains “a unifying force that stands for strength, courage, pride and respect”, and claims an “overwhelming majority” of Americans view the name positively along with Native American tribal leaders who have said they have no problem with it. Goodell goes on to cite “the most recent detailed survey of Native Americans, conducted by the independent and highly respected Annenberg Public Policy Center, found that fewer than 10% considered the name objectionable.”
Wait a minute! Says Mike Freeman, blogging at CBSSports.com
The team shouldn’t be called the racist name Redskins. There is no significant population of American Indians. The percentage of American Indians in D.C., the Census states, is 0.6 percent.
Thus the more correct correlation for a team name is the Washington N-Words.
If we’re going to be bigots, why not go big? Or, actually, why not get more realistic?
Instead of a stereotypical Indian wearing war paint, the mascot can be a Sambo-like dude smacking his lips on some watermelon. Or maybe take Sergio Garcia’s suggestion and have it be fried chicken.
What? That offends you? Seems ridiculous? The Redskins caricature is just as stereotypical and ugly.
If you want to know what it means to many American Indians when they hear Redskins — and I’m part American Indian so I guess I have some say in the use of both of these words — call the team the Washington N-Words.
Whoa. That sounds a little extreme.
Until you take a look back at the Washington team’s racist roots. From The Nation:
The beloved local team was the last NFL franchise to integrate, and only did so after a rising protest movement and the Kennedy administration forced the issue. The roadblock to integration was the man who brought the team to Washington and, not at all coincidentally, bestowed the team with the name “Redskins”: George Preston Marshall. Marshall was without question a great football innovator who invented rituals like halftime shows, the Pro Bowl, and was an early popularizer of the forward pass. He was also a stone bigot. At the time, the Redskins were the southern-most team in the NFL, and Marshall marketed his team to a white Southern audience by playing Dixie before games and saying proudly, “We’ll start signing Negroes when the Harlem Globetrotters start signing whites.” This is why the team is called Redskins: it was a racist name from a racist owner.
Perhaps this is why Goodell’s letter wasn’t received well in Congress, with Congresswoman Betty McCollum calling it “a statement of absurdity” and “another attempt to justify a racial slur.”
(True fact: I have been a fan of the Washington franchise for most of my adult life. I’ve tried rooting for the Chargers, but it just hasn’t worked for me.)
USA Spook-a-thon Round-up (Spy Stories)
Mediaite says The Guardian has backed off of one its most sensation claims made in the wake of revelations from Ex-NSA contract employee Edward Snowden.
While the rest of the world plays “Where In The World Is Edward Snowdiego?”, The Guardian has quietly clarified a key piece of Glenn Greenwald‘s reporting, in comically aggressive/aggressive fashion. When news of the NSA’s Prism data collection program was first broken by Greenwald and The Washington Post‘s Laura Poitros, the “grabber” was that the spy agency had “direct access” to the servers of large internet providers. WaPo, however, backed off of this claim almost immediately, while The Guardian let it stand until today, when it left-cheek-sneaked out a clarification by other reporters.
Calling this a “clarification” is actually very generous, since Greenwald’s initial reporting on Prism gave the unmistakable impression that the NSA was jacking directly into the servers of companies like Google and Facebook, and that it collected information without authorization…
Ooops. Small technical error here folks. The ‘direct access’ was to an FTP server, which is how transfers of digital files that are too large for email take place. The data was placed there as a means of compliance by various companies with court orders.
…
Rep. Peter King (R-NY) went on Fox News Wednesday to repeat and expand his call for for journalists to be prosecuted if they report on classified information, singling out Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald. King bolstered him claim by accusing the columnist of threatening to name CIA agents and assets around the world.
Greenwald later refuted King’s claim, pointing out to CNN’s Anderson Cooper the Congressman’s long time relationship with the Irish Republican Army. From Raw Story:
“It’s bad enough to call for that, it is extraordinarily menacing that he did so based on a complete falsehood, the idea that I ever threatened to [disclose CIA agents],” he said.
…
Greenwald said he had no idea why King was making the false accusation.
“The last thing I would try to do is read what goes on internally in the swamp of Peter King’s brain,” he remarked. “What I do know is that he has a history of all kinds of radical and extremist statements. He himself was a supporter of terrorism for several decades when it was done by the IRA.”
On This Day: 1866 – The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed by the U.S. Congress, granting citizenship to and protecting the civil liberties of recently freed slaves. 1958 – Frank Zappa graduated from Antelope Valley High in Lancaster, CA. 1971 – The New York Times began publishing the “Pentagon Papers”. The articles were a secret study of America’s involvement in Vietnam.
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Doug Porter
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As a native of Cleveland, Ohio, I have had a long attachment to the Cleveland Indians and I am an Anglo person interested since childhood in all things Native American. I cannot imagine the Cleveland ball club ever changing its name, even in the face of the wrath of The Nation Magazine. (I seriously doubt that editor Katherine Van den Heuvel ever convinced anyone of anything.)
But then again, I never the thought the federal government would secretly keep track of all my phone calls either, in the name of “homeland security,” so who knows what the future will bring?