District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis has fired her campaign manager just more than six weeks after the 2012 San Diego mayor’s race officially began.
Tom Mitchell, the ex-manager, said in an interview that Dumanis fired him last Friday. He said the split was amicable, but he wasn’t sure why she made the change.
“I had things that I was not happy with and I didn’t really have a chance to express that,” Mitchell said. He declined to elaborate.
Dumanis’ campaign strategist Jennifer Tierney said she wasn’t sure what Mitchell’s comments meant and didn’t explain why he was let go.
“It has nothing at all to do with the strategy of the campaign,” Tierney said. She added that Dumanis hoped to hire a replacement by the end of the week.
Before signing on with Dumanis, Mitchell had worked on state and federal Republican campaigns including former eBay CEO Meg Whitman’s failed bid for governor.
Dumanis, a Republican, was the first major candidate to declare for the mayor’s race. She’s piled on high-profile endorsements from current Mayor Jerry Sanders, City Councilman Kevin Faulconer, Sheriff Bill Gore and County Supervisor Ron Roberts. She’s also received backing from major Democrats. Dumanis is the lone major Republican in the race to oppose a pension reform ballot measure that’s expected to be the hot-button issue on the June 2012 mayoral primary ballot. She’s promised she would have alternatives to address the city’s pension and budget problems.
Dumanis’ campaign has stayed silent as Republican rivals Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher and City Councilman Carl DeMaio both unveiled impressive unofficial fundraising totals in advance of the Aug. 1 financial disclosure deadline.
Tierney said she’s been dealing with a family emergency, which has held up the release of Dumanis’ fundraising numbers. Tierney wouldn’t provide any figures, saying that Dumanis would give her out her full campaign finance report, instead of unofficial numbers, when it was ready.
Please contact Liam Dillon directly at liam.dillon@voiceofsandiego.org or 619.550.5663 and follow him on Twitter: twitter.com/dillonliam.