Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Fletcher Leaves Republican Party

Nathan Fletcher, California Assemblyman and San Diego Mayoral candidate announced that he was leaving the Republican party today. VOSD discusses his long history with the GOP.
He had Ronald Reagan in mind when walked door-to-door campaigning for Republicans as a teenager and registered Republican voters outside Home Depots in college. He became a professional Republican operative, even working as the state party's political director. He married a former campaign staffer for President George W. Bush. He counts big-name Republicans — Karl Rove, Pete Wilson, Meg Whitman and Mitt Romney — among his supporters in his bid to become San Diego's next mayor.
Over at sdrostra, the announcement has generated a flurry of comments about Fletcher's choice, but I think that his trouncing in the GOP endorsement process led to this decision. The VOSD article opines that this was a result of Tony Krvaric remaking the San Diego Republican party into a less "establishment" mold. If that's really true, then I applaud the move. I'm tired of paying for largesse to downtown business establishments through my city taxes. I have been critical of Krvaric in the past, but if he is really moving the party in that direction, then great. It remains for the moment, unproved.

Meanwhile, polls show Fletcher in last place, so what did he have to lose? The latest polling showed:

DeMaio 24%
Filner 20%
Dumanis 10%
Fletcher 10%
Undecided 35%

It seems that the betting would be for a November runoff between DeMaio and Filner, since neither looks capable of getting more than 50% in the officially non-partisan June primary.

4 comments:

  1. I saw the debate tonight in Hillcrest and Fletcher is just riding the recent independent wave among younger voters who are socially agnostic.

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  2. It's because Tony is calculating that between his fund-raising savvy and the fact that Carl actually does stuff for the citizens of San Diego instead of just the politically connected, he is likely to win. Then Tony can brag about how he helped Carl win.

    I am still voting for Carl. I am going to insist it is the Tea Party/grassroots votes that make him the victor in November (assuming the run-off occurs). That should make another round of heated Rostra dialog.

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  3. Doo Doo, thanks for the update.
    Mut, What do you think of Krvaric now? Seems that DeMaio wouldn't have gotten the GOP nod without Krvaric's participation.

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  4. Such a desperate move to re-brand himself as an independent average-Californian. But the guy doesn't have a fiscally responsible bone in his body...and everyone knows it too well. The only folks supporting him are the hard core Christian voters who can't pull the lever for a homosexual, regardless of policy. San Diego is too aquainted with DeMaio on reform to fall for Flechers bravado.

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