Politics Report: San Diegans for President

Can you imagine anyone in San Diego rising through the political ranks to become president of the United States? Or any celebrity here with the juice to make that jump? It’s unlikely, but as a little thought exercise for Presidents Day, I surveyed several local political leaders and public affairs mavens for their take on two questions:

1) What local leaders should be on the path to the White House?

And

2) What local leaders think they are on the path to be president someday?

There are some important distinctions there. Notice I said “leaders,” not politicians. Wanted to keep the door open for an entrepreneur or activist or whatever. Also “should be” is designed to provoke people to think of folks who may or may not have that ambition but are impressive enough and have the skills to make it seem at least plausible.

The second question – who thinks they are on the path — is designed to evaluate who has the ambition for that sort of determined climb to D.C.

I promised participants total anonymity and heard from 11 people. Here are the responses.

1) What local leaders should be on the path to the White House?

Respondent 1: Nathan Fletcher. “Mostly from just effectiveness in office. He knows how to wield levers of power really well. I don’t think he’ll ever get near the White House, though.”

Respondent 2: Sean Elo-Rivera. “He’s smart, curious, thoughtful, collaborative and aggressive.”

Respondent 3: “Nobody.”

Respondent 4. Nathan Fletcher. “He has the most pure political talent.”

Respondent 5: “In my dream world, there’s a well-funded Kathie Lembo/Mark Cafferty ticket and I own the T-shirt and tote bag. Christina Bibler (director of economic development, city of San Diego) should be the chief of staff. It is beautiful and productive AF. Sadly, these leaders are way too smart for a White House run.” (Lembo is president of South Bay Community Services and Cafferty is CEO of the San Diego Regional Economic Devolopment Corp.)

Respondent 6: “I am thinking hard, and could come up with some potentials, but realistically, I think the only local leader who has the skills to play on that field potentially would be Nathan Fletcher.”

Respondent 7: Nathan Fletcher.

Respondent 8: Scott Peters, Ryan Keim, Jack Fisher and Richard Bailey. (Keim is an Oceanside City Councilmember, Fisher is an Imperial Beach City Councilmember and Bailey is mayor of Coronado).

Respondent 9: Sen. Steve Padilla.

Respondent 10: “Not sure any leader from California should be anywhere near the White House these days but I’ll play along anyway: Kevin Faulconer.”

Respondent 11: Nathan Fletcher and Toni Atkins.

OK, now to the fun one. Who thinks they’re on the path? This is a measurement of obvious ambition and shouldn’t say much about whether they’re qualified or whatever. Just how much they ooze the desire to go that far.

What local leader thinks they are on the path to be president someday?

Respondent 1: Sara Jacobs and Raul Campillo. “Campillo definitely plans to run for mayor in 2028 and if you think you can be the mayor of a city this large, you think you can go all the way.”

Respondent 2: “The obvious answer is Nathan Fletcher. The new answer is Raul Campillo. He is constantly reminding everyone he’s a Harvard-educated lawyer and demonstrating his (lackluster) leadership, effectiveness and general savvy.”

Respondent 3: Raul Campillo.

Respondent 4: “Nick Serrano, deputy chief for Mayor Todd Gloria.”

Respondent 5: “Mayor Todd Gloria and Supervisor Nathan Fletcher often give 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. aspirational vibes, but we’d be better served with their laser focus on local issues and opportunities, rather than brainstorming what their Secret Service code names may be.”

Respondent 6: Raul Campillo, Sean Elo Rivera, Todd Gloria and Nathan Fletcher.

Respondent 7: “It’s Raul Campillo.”

Respondent 8: “Nathan Fletcher (but he might actually be on the path lol).”

Respondent 9: Nathan Fletcher.

Respondent 10: Nathan Fletcher.

Respondent 11: None.

Chum in the Water for Sharks Wanting a Piece of the Mayor

The Politics Report got ahold of a summary of a poll about Mayor Todd Gloria. And as we called around asking about its merits, several people responded with some version of “Oh yeah, the POA poll” meaning the Police Officers Association – the union of SDPD officers.

Jared Wilson declined to comment. And I couldn’t get anyone to confirm it was theirs. The POA supported Gloria’s election in 2020 but ever since he made cops get the vaccine, morale has deteriorated so it’s not inconceivable that it was them.

The poll performed by Lorie Weigel and Karoline McGrail of New Bridge Strategy asked residents: “Would you say that things are going in the right or have they gotten off on the wrong track?”

Of the respondents, 59 percent said they think the city has gotten off on the wrong track and 39 percent said it was headed in the right direction. Then it compared Gloria’s candidacy to a hypothetical mayoral candidacy from Rep. Scott Peters. It has Gloria down six points 50 percent to 44 percent to Peters.

It seems pretty unlikely that Peters would run against Gloria. We also heard the poll had questions pitting Gloria against former Mayor Kevin Faulconer and we think it’s interesting we did not receive the results of that head-to-head matchup.

Bottom line: I think everyone agrees the city’s problems have stuck to Gloria more than they ever did to Faulconer. Why that is, I am not certain. Perhaps it was his own expectations management or maybe it’s just that things, particularly homelessness, has gotten so much worse it had to come home at some point. But it would take an enormous movement to throw a mayor out of office without some eye-popping scandal. And I’m not sure who could pull that off.

About the cops: Our Lisa Halverstadt had a very interesting article this week about police response times spiking for some emergency calls. From 2018 to 2022, response times to active domestic violence calls, assaults and indecent exposure incidents rose an average of more than 78 percent. But it was the anecdotes in the story that got me.

A North Park resident named Isaac Howe saw a man assaulting a woman. He slapped her, threw her to the ground and punched her, Howe said. It took officers 48 minutes to arrive.

But it was this quote that got me: “It forces me as a citizen to really question my ability to rely on the police to come to my aid,” Howe said.

Dem Nightmare Fuel

As long as we’re in political speculation mode, there’s this: Some Democrats have been imagining a scenario in which they lose control of the County Board of Supervisors. It goes like this: Coronado Mayor Richard Bailey, a Republican, runs against County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer, whose district is now just coastal – from Carlsbad down to Coronado.

Bailey wins and Nathan Fletcher wins the seat in the state Senate, leaving his seat on the Board vacant. With his seat empty and Lawson-Remer out, that would leave two Republicans, Jim Desmond and Joel Anderson and then the newly elected Bailey. They could appoint a Republican to fill Fletcher’s seat.

And just like that, the period of Democratic control of the Board would end far sooner than Democrats had imagined.

But that’s a lot of dominoes to fall. And first one would be Bailey even running. The Politics Report called to check in on that.

“I’ve heard that rumor as well, but it’s not coming from me and I suspect it is more speculation based on there being only a few elected Republicans in the district,” Bailey said.

That’s all he would offer and he didn’t want to fuel any more of the speculation.

If you have any comments or ideas for the Politics Report, send them to scott.lewis@voiceofsandiego.org or andrew.keatts@voiceofsandiego.org.