Craig Gustafson’s excellent piece in last Sunday’s U-T San Diego, exposing the secret and inept campaign to smear Carl DeMaio and derail his mayoral bid, appears to contain a flaw that deserves a mention.
One of the key players involved in the clandestine campaign is Gerry Braun, who was then a top aide to Mayor Jerry Sanders and an early Nathan Fletcher supporter. Before moving to the mayor’s office, Braun worked at the U-T, for many years as one of the area’s most prominent and respected political writers. He is a former colleague of both Gustafson and Michael Smolens, the U-T political editor who Gustafson reports to. Braun and Smolens are apparently longtime friends and Smolens was Braun’s editor for a time.
Is any of this noteworthy? As anything in politics, that depends on perspective. In this case, Braun was barely mentioned in Gustafson’s narrative, yet he appears to have played a larger role than that described. From the story:
The trail begins with a Sept. 18, 2011, email from Sanders aide and former U-T reporter Gerry Braun to Phil Rath, president of Public Policy Strategies, with a seven-page scope of work document for investigator Caitlin Rother “to research San Diego mayoral candidate Carl DeMaio.” Rath’s firm is co-owned by political consultant Tom Shepard, who was running Fletcher’s campaign at the time.
In an interview, Braun said he got involved to help connect friends in a journalistic endeavor and that was the limit of his involvement. Rather also indicated in a February 2012 email that Braun hadn’t been involved for months. (Emphasis Mine.)
Is it true Braun’s involvement began and ended with introductions?
A review of the linked back-up material provided in the Gustafson story — emails, invoices and other interesting nuggets from the key players — sheds light on at least one email from Rother suggesting Braun was more involved.
In the same February 2012 email Gustafson references, Rother tells Fred Maas she’s frustrated with Braun because he’s only planning to pitch one reporter.
“gerry told me today that he is planning to talk to just ONE reporter and that he isn’t even going to give him/her the report I just spent the past two months putting together??? it was very disturbing to hear that — and especially because it came from him and not one of you, given that he hasn’t even been a part of this process for the past two months,” Rother’s email reads.
Braun’s role certainly appears larger than the U-T story noted — connecting friends strictly for righteous journalism reasons — and the former mayoral aide turned PR consultant clearly has an interest in downplaying his infamous efforts in this secret and ugly campaign.
Just how large of a role did Braun play? How many months was he involved? Did he contact more than one reporter? Did Gustafson ask these questions? If not, did Smolens? More importantly, why did Braun appear to get the kid-glove treatment from the U-T?
Additionally, and this is unrelated but an entertaining sidebar, we have Rath trying to convince everyone he’s squeaky clean, and he offers proof to back it up. After all, he tells Gustafson, in the end he supported DeMaio.
In Rath’s statement he tells Gustafson there’s nothing to see, that the secret probe he helped run actually was a truth test for DeMaio…and that DeMaio passed! Rath notes he ended up supporting DeMaio (after Fletcher didn’t make the runoff), served on his finance committee “and personally raised money for his race.”
If DeMaio was worthy of Rath’s endorsement once the DeMaio information was compiled, then why did he push the packet to news outlets and blog sites?
“Supporting” someone after you work to crush them only proves one thing — you’re probably a damn good poker player.
Finally, the U-T recently posted “A Different View of Carl DeMaio Story” by Thom Senzee, the former editor of San Diego LBGT Weekly. It sheds even more light on some of the key players involved in what local freelance journalist Randy Dotinga has started referring to as #gaybaitgate on Twitter.
When will Voice of San Diego’s Scott Lewis weigh in? Tweets don’t count, Scott.
Comments 6
Steve you say:
“When will Voice of San Diego’s Scott Lewis weigh in? Tweets don’t count, Scott.”
Lewis will continue to hide in the reeds. He needs Jacobs’ (and his man Braun) permission.
When you take the money you do what you are told.
For real kid glove-treatment of a principal in the smear, look at the lengths the SD Reader is going to defend Rother.
Fact Check! Your hiding-in-the-reeds claim is False, and borders on Huckster Propaganda.
Scott’s been the most vociferous critic of the DeMaio smear mess. I’m a part-time VOSD-er, and I think (and have written) that it’s sleazy due to the “it’s journalism” nonsense.
Read what Lewis wrote:
http://storify.com/sandiegorostra/local-discussion-on-the-investigate-demaio-story.html
Do you really think Braun is a major villain here?
He helped a journalist get work. And then he tried to stir interest in the dirt that was dug up. His role appeared right at the very top of the U-T story.
Yeah, his “involvement” didn’t seem to end early on. But just passing on dirt to a reporter doesn’t seem like deep involvement. Everybody in politics passes on dirt to reporters. And vice versa.
Big whoop. There are bigger fish to fry. Like everybody else involved 🙂
The fact remains that “Braun gets kid-glove treatment” and VOSD is always “too chicken to publish” anything uncomplimentary about Jacobs or any of his human assets like Gerry Braun.
So, go fact check yourselves.
Don’t let the facts (like VOSD’s harsh and incessant coverage of the Jacobs library funding nonsense) get in the way of a good narrative.