I got an email today from a friend that seems to be in pretty close touch with Nathan Fletcher and company. She will remain nameless, but I thought it was worth publishing. I’ll skip the chatter back and forth and just hit the part I thought was important:

“Yes I think NF is going to be in. I hear in the next ten days. I think that makes the race a real barn burner. I think he can raise more than BD or CD. So you have the right winger, and you have the top cop, and now you have the war hero. This is San Diego … lots of former military around … maybe he can get votes from everyone on that.”

ITEM 1: CHANGES AT THE NEW MAJORITY. Sounds like the San Diego New Majority is in the midst of a staff change. Current staffer Doug Sain, who has served in the position for a couple of years, is either moving on or acting as an adviser in a different capacity (conflicting stories). The replacement will be John Cross. I don’t know Mr. Cross but wish him the best of luck…

Regarding today’s Voice of San Diego blurb… CityBeat’s John Lamb’s incredibly lame excuse for printing an incorrect story. Yes, John, you should have put on your reading glasses. Sort of one of the normal obligations of the press when they decide to zing someone. All of us know you salivate wildly at any hint of negative news (or news you can make negative with a twist) about the Republican Party. Just slow down tiger. And is it really just impossible to retract without a nasty comment? Stay classy, progressive San Diego.

From Voice:

Not Close and No Cigar

Every Supervisor in the County of San Diego gets a large “slush fund” that has ranged over the years, I believe, from half a million to a million taxpayer dollars. Basically, the Supervisors get to dole this money out to whatever nonprofits or projects they see fit. Over the years Supervisor Pam Slater has spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars subsidizing an arts community that should be self sufficient. It’s not that I don’t support art: I just don’t want to pay for what I don’t like. Further, I’d much rather the county spend its precious resources on more sheriffs, for instance.

Without opposition.

I think we’ve all watched Chairman Michael Steele with some degree of head shaking over the last couple of years. Instead of doing the job of party chairman quietly, raising money and recruiting candidates, he worked overtime to make himself the ‘face’ of the GOP, often with embarrassing results. Finally, donors were so disquieted by Steele that they basically pulled their money from the Republican Party and fed it into outside groups like those led by Karl Rove. Now according to Fox News he’s set up a confidential conference call to announce he will not run for a second term.

Councilwoman Marti Emerald was shocked at the results of District 6 a week ago. The day of the election she was smilingly predicting a Wayne win, if not walk over.  What would a Wayne win have meant? With just two seats in GOP hands and another resounding labor victory, it would have meant a disheartened small business community that would finally cave into the Chamber of Commerce ‘corporate welfare’ types who long since gave up the fight. A Wayne victory in D6 would have meant an easier re-election campaign for Emerald. Now, of course, the small business community and the local GOP smell blood in the water.

Dear Marti, I read the following:

(From San Diego Magazine) THE POKING NOSE: With San Diego still struggling to stem the riptide of red ink, the city is “desperately trying to ‘refinance’ its debt,” according to one City Hall wag. “In other words, some want to stretch payments out longer for short-term savings. Sounds familiar,” she says. “Very much like underfunding the city’s pension yesterday to pass on the debt to our children tomorrow.” … Another one bites the dust? San Diego Social magazine has apparently stopped the presses. Calls to its listed phone number are going unanswered … City Council offices are buzzing about the recent abrupt departure of Councilmember Marti Emerald’s chief of staff, Xema Jacobson. (Former policy chief Don Mullen has replaced her.) A colleague says the departure is related to a new ethics complaint involving Emerald’s office, but Emerald says no. “Why would anyone start a rumor like that? Xema and I have been close friends for 20 years,” she says. “She made the decision to leave as part of a realignment of the office.”

Recently Marti Emerald asked the Mayor’s office to televise her upcoming confrontation with the Ethics Commission, which he denied as it would conflict with the Planning Commission. For those of you who don’t track Emerald closely, she is in hot water with the Ethics Commission for various violations and doesn’t much like it that the “troubleshooter” role is someone else’s. So why does Marti want this televised? The general feeling downtown is that she is going to be fairly harshly punished and fined for her ethical violations. Why would she want us to see that?

I’ve also heard what ‘Sunshine’ heard – that Xema is out as Chief of Staff to Marti Emerald. Further, though, I heard that Emerald offered the position to another long time City Hall staffer liberal Democrat Don Mullen. Xema and Mullen had a very, very rocky relationship, and rumor has it he threatened to quit in the last couple days for a job outside City Hall.

I didn’t check my emails from Friday until this morning. Upon reading them, what did I find but an email from one of the previous “Crimmins Crowd” on the local GOP Committee – this one allegedly the contents of a back and forth email between a young, disturbed activist and a former San Diego County Republican Party Chairman, largely dealing with the less than positive relationship some years ago between California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring and the former Chairman in question. The intent of the exchange is clearly an attempt by the activist to convince the past-Chairman to air whatever grievances he might have. This is the fourth such email that I’ve gotten from “Da Rat” as he calls himself since Michael Crimmins was bounced off the local GOP Committee 44-1 (the 1 being his own vote). I think they make pretty clear who the individual filling our emails with “anonymous” defamatory attacks on Nehring and current Chairman Tony Krvaric is. I will be forwarding these documents to Ron Nehring and Tony Kravaric. The behavior of the “anonymous” individual in question is repulsive, juvenile, and worthy of a civil lawsuit or criminal prosecution.