After months of speculation, Councilman Scott Sherman recently pulled papers to run for mayor of San Diego. His political consultant clarified to KPBS that doing so was just to give Sherman the option — to keep things open.
But this week, Sherman, uh, re-clarified to Andrew Keatts that he is actually, officially running. Now he’s the only Republican in the race for mayor.
In the podcast, Keatts along with hosts Scott Lewis and Sara Libby, discuss what this could mean for Barbara Bry, Sherman’s fellow City Council member and the person who until this week was the prime opponent to Assemblyman Todd Gloria. Gloria has been stacking up endorsements for months.
A North County Flip-Flop
It was a shock to a lot of local political watchers last year when Escondido’s incumbent mayor, Sam Abed, lost his re-election bid to Democrat Paul McNamara.
At that time, Olga Diaz — the only Democrat on the City Council — was thrilled. Now Diaz is running for the District 3 county supervisor seat, a contested race that could determine the political majority for the Board of Supervisors. McNamara endorsed her run.
When we recently profiled McNamara, Diaz told us the new mayor can be unpredictable.
This week he proved it by withdrawing his endorsement. He announced he’d instead be supporting Diaz’s Democratic rival, Terra Lawson-Remer.
The Latest (Final?) Twist in the Hunter Saga
Rep. Duncan Hunter has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to use campaign contributions as personal income.
It was a pretty long saga. Hunter and his wife were wrapped up in a campaign spending scandal. Eventually lots of details came out on how they were using the money. In total, they were accused of misusing more than $250,000, landing Hunter on a list of San Diego’s most scandalous members of Congress.
He could face up to five years in prison. And in the meantime, he is not allowed to cast votes in Congress.