By Doug Porter
Failed mayoral candidate and wannabe Congressman Carl DeMaio is taking his message of “opportunity” to college students in the San Diego area this week, hoping that a smiling face and a pocketful of libertarian promises will woo the youth vote into the Republican fold.
Like the witch in Hansel and Gretel he’s hoping to lure young votes with the lure of sweet success: he’s the “new” Republican. Students are supposed to forget about all those nasty old white men waving their transvaginal wands to ward off people of color and other likely Democrats from voting booths around the country.
“I’m taking on the Republican Party and trying to get them off those divisive social issues — let individuals decide these kinds of issues for themselves,” the 39-year-old DeMaio told UT-San Diego. “The whole tone and tenor and culture has to change.”
Lest college students be lured by the sirens of his “Free to Be” call, I suggest a little research on Mr. DeMaio. My article from the 2012 mayoral contest, The Psychology of a ‘Political Sociopath’ and Jim Miller’s Carl DeMaio Is a Dangerous, Mean-Spirited Liar and other Tales of Fear and Loathing in San Diego are good places to start. And the SD Free Press has an extensive archive on this “new” Republican.
More on this, from UT-San Diego:
…while DeMaio hasn’t been endorsed by the national Republican Party, groups that back it such as the Koch brothers’ American for Prosperity political action committee and other groups are already running anti-Peters broadcast ads and distributing literature attacking his positions.
DeMaio’s campus visits begin at 7 p.m. Monday at San Diego State University followed by a 7 p.m. Wednesday visit to Point Loma Nazarene. He’ll be at the University of San Diego at noon on Thursday, and UC San Diego at 7 p.m. that evening.
Note that DeMaio isn’t visiting any of the Community Colleges in our area. He did find college students to be a useful constituency during his mayoral campaign; he used them to flyer local campuses saying the Bob Filner would close down their favorite bars.
Heritage Says ‘No’ to LGBT Employment Non-Discrimination Law
While we’re on the subject of Carl DeMaio, it’s important to know that his formative years were spent working with the Heritage Foundation, which has spun off an overt political arm called Heritage Action for America.
Let’s see what kind of ‘Freedom to Be’ they’ve been working on lately.
From Capital Hill’s Roll Call:
Heritage Action for America announced Friday it will score votes for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA)next week in the Senate, because the group argues it would harm religious freedom as well as job creation.
The move by the conservative group, which is more influential with membership of the Republican-led House than the Senate, suggests that any momentum for the measure to bar employment discrimination against gays and lesbians might not persist outside of the Senate.
The article goes on to quote Heritage Foundation fellow Ryan T. Anderson, writing in the National Review:
“ENDA would further increase federal-government interference in labor markets, potentially discouraging job creation. It would not protect equality before the law, but create special privileges that are enforceable against private actors,” he wrote.
Anderson also brought up concerns about the right to privacy for straight employees in workplace restrooms.
“An employer would be negligent to ignore the concerns of female employees about having to share bathrooms with a biological male who says he identifies as female,” Anderson wrote. “Failing to consider these repercussions raises a host of concerns about privacy rights.”
DeMaio’s Suburban “Jobs” Campaign
DeMaio’s been keeping a high profile in the industry sponsored effort to overturn the buffer zone between industrial and residential areas created by the City Council’s approval of the Barrio Logan Community Plan.
They’ve been gathering signatures in suburban malls, falsely claiming that 46,000 jobs were threatened by the plan and that the plan was a ploy by developers to build condos. Each weekend DeMaio goes out and leads the troops, getting white voters to sign a petition that will take way control of their community from brown voters.
Backers of this effort are now gathering signatures for a second initiative designed to overturn zoning laws connected to the plan. And, as usual with these schemes, the money is hard or impossible to trace.
Here’s Dorian Hargrove over the San Diego Reader:
The “Protect Our Jobs Coalition, Sponsored by the Port of San Diego Ship Repair Association” paid a pretty penny to get the signatures. According to an October 31, disclosure, the association paid $140,000 to post petition workers outside of local hardware stores and other big-box outlets.
Those in the industry oppose tighter environmental regulations included in Barrio Logan‘s Community Plan Update. The major sticking point is a buffer zone aimed at keeping industrial businesses out of residential zones. If the plan makes it to implementation, the opposition believes suppliers in the area will have to relocate, thus jacking up the price of doing business.
One important detail is missing from the October 31 disclosure: who paid for the signature drive? The disclosure shows that the Protect Our Jobs Coalition has spent $156,613 but has only collected $15,025 in contributions, $15,000 of which from National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO).
UT-San Diego’s ‘Dumb It Down’ Electoral Agenda
Taking a page from the “America’s Dumbest….” TV franchises, the Daily Fishwrap let loose with an all-important investigation into the driving records of the four major mayoral candidates, revealing that three (Aguirre, Alvarez and Faulconer) of them had received traffic tickets in their past and that the wife of Nathan Fletcher may have been involved in an auto accident.
I honestly get it that reporter Trent Seibert made inquiries. But publishing the non-results—two speeding tickets and a driving while on the phone offense—has to rank near the bottom of the barrel.
Disappointed that their candidate didn’t make the story (Mindy’s accident was apparently reported in error), Nathan Fletcher’s campaign issued a tongue in cheek press release saying the candidate had indeed been cited for an illegal “left turn”. A UT editor spent the day on twitter bemoaning the fact that the Fletcher campaign wouldn’t tell him which jurisdiction the offense occurred in. (Really!)
Papa Doug’s Candidate by a Landslide, Redux
The Sunday Fishwrap featured a front page story concerning a new poll showing Republican Kevin Faulconer at the head of the pack in the mayor’s race. The SurveyUSA automated poll showed a mere 4% of respondents saying they were undecided three weeks before the election, a number that should have raised a large warning flag for anybody interpreting the results.
But not the UT-San Diego. They go on to report that SurveyUSA suggesting the GOP candidate could even surpass the 50% mark in the November 19th election, eliminating the need for a run off. Why they even say candidate David Alvarez is “struggling” to attract Latinos.
Read the fine print folks.
The pollsters changed their mix of Republican voters up to 36% of the electorate from previous polls. I’m assuming that was done because (drum roll) “everybody knows” the electorate is more conservative in special elections. The UT tried to keep the story honest by running with a sidebar explaining how actual turnout might impact results, and I don’t blame him, especially since the number of mailed ballots already turned in is surprisingly high.
Responding to the front page story in Sunday’s paper showing their candidate mired in third place, David Alvarez supporters in organized labor released their own polling. (See Graphic) Later in the afternoon GOP Chair Tony Krvaric tweeted, saying their internal polls showed distance between Alvarez and Fletcher to be similar to the labor-sponsored poll.
Via San Diego Politico:
FROM THE POLL:
- In the mayoral trial heat, Kevin Faulconer now leads with 34% of the vote. David Alvarez (22%) and Nathan Fletcher (21%) are effectively tied for second position, and Mike Aguirre is a distant fourth with just 5% support.
- It is extremely likely that we are headed for a run-off election, as Faulconer is well below the 50% threshold needed to win outright on November 19.
The current state of the mayoral race shows voters settling into expected partisan divisions as they learn more about the candidates.
- Faulconer’s lead is largely due to his consolidation of Republican voters, among whom he receives 63% support.
- Alvarez holds an 11-point lead over Fletcher among registered Democrats, which makes sense given that Fletcher only recently abandoned his Republican roots.
- We also see Alvarez opening up an expected but important lead among the city’s Latino voters, 36% of whom support Councilman Alvarez, compared to 21% for Faulconer, 15% for Fletcher, and 8% for Aguirre.
A Reality Bite
Given all the reportage on UT-San Diego that I’ve had to share today, this seems like a good place for a little palate cleanser.
Stoner magazine High Times reports the first known death directly caused by marijuana. A Brazilian man was crushed by 1000 pounds after his car hit a tree while being chased by police.
Man, we’ve had to buckle our seatbelts to smoke some dope in our day, but we’ve never had any shit that required airbags.
As you probably guessed, police confiscated what was left of the man’s car and his killer marijuana. Yet, despite the tragic events of the day, we would be willing to bet there was one hell of a party, that night, somewhere in Brazil.
(Ht/Zwoof)
Follow the Money, Part One
The Los Angeles Times has a wowser of a story up today with City Attorney Jan Goldsmith boasting about his “defacto impeachment” of former Mayor Bob Filner.
A decision was made to squeeze Filner, giving him the choice to resign or wage an expensive legal fight.
“We didn’t think he had the willingness or [financial] ability to deal with the legal issue,” Goldsmith said.
Goldsmith persuaded the City Council to refuse to defend Filner in the Jackson lawsuit and instead force him to hire private attorneys.
“It was a bluff,” said Goldsmith, noting that California law requires a public employer to represent an employee, even a mayor, accused of on-the-job misdeeds.
This ought to keep the Filner conspiracy theorists going for weeks.
But, as they say on TV, wait! There’s more!
Matt Potter over at the San Diego Reader posted a story about the money behind the $100,000 collected by the Recall Filner movement. And, wouldn’t you know it, the biggest chunk came from a real estate developer.
According to a filing yesterday by the Recall Bob Filner committee, Robert S. Wilson of an L.A.-based outfit called Duckett-Wilson Development Company put up $25,000 of the total $99,795 in contributions received by the group
In San Diego, the company’s most noted operation is a branch of their Fish Market restaurant chain, located on land leased from the Port ofSan Diego. According to the firm’s website, “The Fish Market Restaurants are some of the highest grossing restaurants in the State ofCalifornia.”
A total of $10,000 was contributed by Rancho Santa Fe‘s John H. Cox. A lawyer, the conservative Republican Cox unsuccessfully sought aU.S. Senate seat in Illinois in 2002, losing the primary. He’s also expressed interest in running for president.
Downtown San Diego developer Oliver-McMillan, the Caster Family Trust, and Fred Applegate of Rancho Santa Fe each gave $5000. Atlas Hotels, run by C. Terry Brown, who declared political war on Filner after the then-mayor blocked a lucrative tourism-funding deal negotiated by his Republican predecessor Jerry Sanders, made a so-called in-kind contribution of $7673 in rooms for volunteer meetings, the report says.
Follow the Money, Part Two
The Los Angeles Times reports the $15 million in dark money used by conservative forces in the 2012 elections should have been $25 million. That’s right: $10 million disappeared, and, because of the nature of ‘dark money’, nobody knows where it went.
SACRAMENTO — Tony Russo had a multimillion-dollar problem.
The Republican consultant and his team had raised piles of cash to use in California politics as last November’s election approached. But a wrinkle in state law meant he couldn’t spend it in the final two months of the campaign without jeopardizing the anonymity he had promised his rich donors.
So Russo turned to what he called “the Koch network.” He asked a political consultant who has worked with billionaire Republican contributors Charles and David Koch to shuttle the money through an Arizona nonprofit. That group, which is not required to reveal its donors, could send cash to California causes without names attached.
But things went from bad to worse. Although Russo handed over $25 million, only about $15 million ended up back in California. And when the money surfaced, it sparked an investigation by state authorities, who last month[ levied $16 million in penalties against the Arizona group and three others.
Check Out the SDFree Press Calendar
Thanks to the efforts of Brent Beltran, the San Diego Free Press now has an on-line calendar of events. You can see events in the arts, performances and political gatherings of every persuasion by clicking on the ‘Calendar’ Tab at the top of the page. To get your event listed, drop us a line: events@sandiegofreepress.org
On This Day: 1924 – Nellie T. Ross of Wyoming was elected America’s first woman governor so she could serve out the remaining term of her late husband, William B. Ross. 1961 – Bob Dylan made his concert hall debut in New York City. The show was seen by 50 people who paid two dollars each at Carnegie Hall. 1979 – Iranian militants seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took 63 Americans hostage (90 total hostages). The militants, mostly students, demanded that the U.S. send the former shah back to Iran to stand trial. Many hostages were later released, but 52 were held for the next 14 months.
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Doug Porter
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The LA Times story just shows that Bob Filner was never going to be allowed to finish his term as mayor. Even if the sex harassment scandal hadn’t happened, Goldsmith would have done whatever it takes to bring Filner down.
A reliable source tells me that Carl DeMaio got a whopping
1220 students at SDSU, including the4protesters that showed up + 3 staff.With Carl DeMaionnaise wooing the campuses (he’s only 39!) as a knight in (very) white armor, and some card-carrying Libertarians showing anti-war and legal marijuana positions, we should add the Libertarians to the Tea Partyers on the list of not-so-secret Republican weapons. The party of Ayn Randys has always enjoyed a certain appeal to high schoolers taking their first political steps. The Libertarians’ myth of the uncommon self makes some adolescents feel more comfortable lying outside the center of a fairly demanding social ethic.
The problem is, many of those people outside the center didn’t choose to be. Try to imagine the friends Carl DeMaionnaise ran around with in high school.
A facebook page about DeMaio’s upcomiong UCSD event links to a UCsd right wing student paper’s interview with the man. In it, he says his first order of business is to reform the way congress does business. HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa! As if Boehner, et al will pay any attention to a snot-nosed freshman rep’s calls for reform. If he’s elected he will be told what to do, when to do it, and with how much vigor. If he doesn’t listen, he will spend the next two years on the Capital Toilet Bowl Cleaning Committee, and will face serious, and well funded, primary challengers.