This year, the political parties can donate unlimited amounts of money directly to local candidates. And now only one GOP mayoral candidate will be eligible for that largesse: Councilman Carl DeMaio.
On Saturday, two-thirds of the voting members of the Republican Party of San Diego’s Central Committee voted to endorse DeMaio on its first round of voting.
On Friday, I had broken down the tension between DeMaio and Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher leading up to the vote.
Twitter lit up Saturday with news that it had happened. I saw the endorsement of DeMaio over Fletcher and Dumanis as the culmination of several years worth of work by DeMaio and Chairman Tony Krvaric to separate the party from what they label “the establishment” characterized by moderate Republicans like former Mayor Dick Murphy, Mayor Jerry Sanders and former City Councilmen Brian Maienschein and Jim Madaffer.
Here’s a piece I did in 2010 on DeMaio and Krvaric versus this “establishment.”
Erica Holloway, a Republican consultant and blogger, said Fletcher focused too much on blocking the endorsement and not on “courting the base.” Labor political director Evan McLaughlin said the endorsement wasn’t much more than a “helpful cue.” U-T San Diego political reporter Chris Cadelago noted that it was “another victory for DeMaio’s team of kids” as his supporters were called.
Here’s the U-T post on the endorsement and here’s NBC 7 San Diego’s with a statement from Fletcher.
Update: Wow. Krvaric and co. are really pining to declare Fletcher and District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis hopeless in the mayor’s race. Tell me, why do you think that the local GOP would work so hard to assert that it’s impossible for two Republicans to make it to the final election for mayor?
I’m Scott Lewis, the CEO of voiceofsandiego.org. Please contact me if you’d like at scott.lewis@voiceofsandiego.org or 619.325.0527 and follow me on Twitter (it’s a blast!):
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