Lori Saldaña is Talking And Republicans Should Listen

Brian BradyBrian Brady 1 Comment

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I was wrong about Lori Saldaña. She’s talking over at the San Diego Free Press and it ain’t gonna be pretty for the San Diego County Democratic Party Central Committee. Wednesday’s piece (Part Two) is going to directly answer the question I posed to her:

Did the San Diego Democratic Party threaten to withhold support from you if you refused to endorse Filner in the Mayoral election?”

She alludes to the answer in today’s installment (Part One):

Despite dismissing our accounts, Durfee shared these stories with others within Party leadership. Not surprisingly, they were met with a combination of disbelief, dismissal, and, ultimately, with anger directed at me. In a strange but not unexpected twist, I was the one who was being “thrown off the island” by Democratic Party staffers, candidates, and insiders who needed to protect their careers, and/or wanted to be candidates some day, and/or would need both the institutional support and the funding that running for office requires.

Bottom line: no one wanted me to rain on the Party’s parade, and disrupt what seemed to be the best opportunity they had in 20 years to elect a Democrat as Mayor of San Diego. Also, there were  many people waiting in the wings for the  open seats that would follow. That meant more jobs for campaign staff, consultants, pollsters and eventually in legislative offices.

This problem isn’t confined to the Democratic Party Central Committee. Over 50% of the elected Republican Central Committee members are beholden to institutional influence: they hold jobs with elected Republicans, get political consulting engagements for their campaigns, or lobby those elected officials. That’s just the 42 elected members of the Republican Central Committee — throw in the ex-officio members and their appointments, and the interest in the status quo this voting bloc has is simply remarkable. It’s over 60%.

It’s not pay-for-play and it’s certainly not corruption but when 60% of a governing body has a primary interest in protecting personal income, rather than advancing principles, compromises are going to be made.

I think that’s going to be obvious in Saldaña’s second installment. Local Republicans can learn from this lesson.

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Comments 1

  1. Brian: As always, a thoughtful analysis. I know that most of our local elected officials are better than this. I know Kevin is. But after going through the D2 appointment process, it’s obvious that some of our local elected officials need to get back to principles over compromise.

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