My Thoughts from DeMaio’s Announcement

For me, the most interesting thing about the speech wasn’t the text of the actual speech. Don’t get me wrong, it was a very good speech that focused on his plans to fight for the fiscal future of San Diego. He hit all the fiscal conservative points and really dialed in on pension reform.

But what was really intriguing was learning more about DeMaio’s background and the size and energy of the crowd.

I didn’t know much about his background other than he had a successful businesses that I assume he sold for a pretty nice payday, was a self described “watch dog” and was elected to council in 08. I was always impressed that he had done all of this and he is only in his mid-30s. But the crowd and I learned a few more details from his sister yesterday. Turns out his mom died of cancer when he was young; around the same time his father went MIA. Although his sister didn’t explicitly say it, it seemed like the two of them bounced around for a number of years until Jesuits finally took in Carl at 14. He went on to pay his way through Georgetown and started his own company with just the money in his pocket.

Her short speech went from downer to inspiring. That evidently got the crowd inspired because I’ve never seen such a lively group of people in RB in my life. While there were plenty of people in their 20s – 50s, the median age was probably mid/late 60s – that might be generous – but boy were they fired up. Probably about 175 attended. All and all, very impressed with the event.

I can’t make it to Fletcher’s today but I’d love to hear anyone’s thoughts on that event.