June 4, 2012 Mayor’s race
SAN DIEGO — On Tuesday, ground zero in the unions’ war on California taxpayers will be here, fought on three fronts.
In the mayor’s race, there’s a fascinating four-way campaign pitting county District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, endorsed by incumbent mayor and fellow Republican Jerry Sanders; veteran Democratic U.S. Rep. Bob Filner; Republican-turned-independent Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher; and City Councilman Carl DeMaio, a libertarian Republican.
Dumanis lags, but polls are otherwise close, making a November runoff certain, and organized labor has gone all out to try to keep DeMaio from advancing. Driving the animus: The 37-year-old Georgetown graduate has been a powerful advocate for basic changes in how government works, pressing for outsourcing, an end to generous defined-benefit pensions and a renunciation of the pay practice under which workers get automatic “step” raises many years just for showing up on the job.
This assault on the San Diego City Hall status quo has produced a vicious response from individual union members and union organizations. DeMaio and his supporters were taunted and harassed while gathering signatures for a sweeping benefits reform measure that’s on Tuesday’s ballot as Proposition B. The first-term councilman, who is gay, has also been baited for his sexual orientation and subjected to an ugly whispering campaign. Last week, the city police union began airing a grossly misleading attack ad that implied DeMaio didn’t think the families of dead cops should get survivor benefits.
Union partner
But the perverse twist is which mayoral candidate has been the unions’ main partner in assaulting DeMaio in defense of the status quo. It’s not Filner, the abrasive, in-your-face traditional 1960s liberal. It’s Fletcher, a photogenic 35-year-old Marine war hero who until two months ago was a conservative Republican with some maverick trappings.
After DeMaio shocked many observers by capturing the local GOP’s formal endorsement over the more experienced Dumanis and more conventional Fletcher, Fletcher dropped his party affiliation and insisted it wasn’t driven by expedience but by his conscience. To the cheers of New York Times columnist David Brooks, Fletcher declared he could no longer in good faith be a member of a party that was part of a dysfunctional political dynamic dominated by “extremists.”
Ever since, Fletcher has offered up DeMaio as an example of the “extremists” who are polluting California’s body politic
- See more at: http://calwatchdog.com/2012/06/04/the-battle-of-san-diego-unions-go-all-out-for-status-quo-with-unlikely-ally/#sthash.ZA6qqmfF.dpuf
Despite everything under the sun, this new information shows what is at stake. There is nothing that the Left will stop at to protect the governing class and its legion of flying monkeys. No matter the subject, the underlying reason is the expansion and financial benefit of the governing class and its henchmen. For example, Obamacare, the Left tries to sell this clusterf*** as a benefit to the poor uninsured shlub. If you look deeper, the trillions of dollars that will be spent will end up in the pockets of those who administer the program in salaries and benefits. The intended recepients will get the table scraps.