Note to Bill Hauf: The FEC wants to know how much, but they also want the decimal point in the right place… 50th CD candidate Bill Hauf, who remains in the race against Brian Bilbray, on one side of the ballot anyway, filed a couple of Federal Election Commission-required notices during the week. Under FEC rules, a federal candidate must fax a notice to his opponents when he donates to his campaign.
Hauf’s first such notice of the week showed personal contributions of $100,000 on 5/11 and $900,000 on 5/18 to his primary campaign. Let’s call that report the "Bilbray being in for a $1 million surprise".
However, the second Hauf notice corrected the first, indicating his campaign had filed in error…the second loan was $90,000 (not $900,000), meaning he had only put in $190,000, not the originally-reported $1 million. Let’s call that one "Ooops".
U-T Endorses Thompson Over Horn… Whether due to it being an election year, or his own actions and decision-making, Supervisor Bill Horn just can’t seem to escape the news in recent weeks.
Yesterday, the North County Times adds to the list of stories with "news" of a non-permitted Horn-owned trailer housing one of his ranch workers. The big question is whether this would have been a story at all, if the other stories hadn’t exacerbated what Bill must think is media frenzy aimed directly at his head.
The big-Horn story of the week, however, was Thursday’s San Diego Union-Tribune endorsement of former Assemblyman Bruce Thompson for 5th District Supervisor. Entitled "Retire Horn," the article takes some swinging roundhouses at Horn and connects in the process, including the ringing line, "Thus it makes sense to send Supervisor Bill Horn back home, wherever that is." Ouch.
Whether all of this media carries enough weight to put Thompson ahead of the well-funded Horn on June 6, in a county where incumbent Supes virtually never lose, will be a true test of the power of scandal fueled by media attention — or perhaps vice versa — whether rightful or not. By the way, I don’t believe all of the media focus on Bill has been the result of Thompson’s actions, as alleged by the Horn camp. If there is one cliché in politics — besides all the others — it’s the line, "This is just election year politics," while pointing at the opponent, when things aren’t exactly going one’s way.
No, I’m afraid this is more than election year politics, a lot of it is legitimate media stories based on some questionable decisions by Horn. But, given it IS an election year, the Thompson campaign DID issue a press release on the U-T endorsement. Usually, you issue a press release to try to get some media, not as a result of having already received it. That’s how important Bruce views the U-T decision:
Fallbrook- The Thompson for Supervisor campaign is happy to announce that Bruce has received the endorsement of the San Diego Union Tribune. The County’s premier news source enthusiastically picked Bruce Thompson as a candidate who would bring much needed change to the County Board of Supervisors. They also criticized the embattled Bill Horn for his lack of leadership and legacy of failure.
Read the U-T editorial endorsement here.
Update on Term Limits for County Supes… Speaking of Supervisors and those who aren’t enamored of at least some of them, here’s a follow-up to my March 2 post, "Of Medical MJ, Bruce Thompson, County Sup Term Limits & Blind Squirrels," in the form of a presser held this past week:
Press Conference 5/17/06 12 Noon
PLACE: County Administrative Building
CONTACT: Co-Chairman Richard Rider: (858) 530-3027 RichardRider@economytelecom.com
Co-Chairman Ken Moser: (858) 414-6170 kenjmoser@abac.com
Treasurer William R. Baber, 619-698-4333, wrblaw@flash.net
Group Calls for Term Limits for County Supervisors
(San Diego) – San Diego Term Limits, a newly formed ballot measure committee, is advocating that the County Board of Supervisors establish term limits for themselves like their contemporaries to the north in Orange County. “It’s time to end the tenor of career politicians who can’t effectively be removed from office due to incumbency and the difficulty of raising funds with a $500 contribution limit”, said Richard Rider Co-Chairman of the Group. Some other reasons cited:
• A $1.3 Billion Dollar Pension Deficit
• Suggestions for Obscene Pay Raises
• Hanky Panky and Corruption
• Bill Horn apparently agrees with the concept of limits, recently stating about the State Legislature …”the best thing that ever happened were term limits…”.
A poll done last week by the group shows that County residents favor term limits for Supervisors by over a 5-1 margin! They will begin airing TV ads Thursday suggesting that the Board take this action on its own to place a term limits initiative on the November 06 ballot. If the Board refuses to act, the San Diego Term Limits Committee may gather the signatures to place the initiative before the voters. "We think the voters of San Diego deserve an opportunity to decide on term limits."
Here’s the resulting article from the U-T.
To be clear, this is not the same term limits effort previously promised by Medical Marijuana advocates. Given the triumvirate of Moser (Adam Smith of CA president), Baber (La Mesa-Spring Valley Schools Trustee) and Rider (Libertarian Godfather), that may be obvious. Or, maybe not. (Kidding, of course, these guys are all my friends!)
More on Soledad… Following up on my post of last week on the Mt. Soledad Memorial, GOP Chair Ron Nehring sends this along:
I’ve been working over the last two weeks to ensure the right people in the President’s administration are fully up to speed on the option advocated by attorney Chuck LiMandri that the Department of Interior move in and condemn the property at Mt. Soledad to bring it into the federal system. My efforts dovetail with those of Congressman Hunter and Mayor Sanders. This is now a decision the Administration must make in order to potentially avert the court’s decision to begin imposing fines if the city doesn’t send the wrecking crew up Mt. Soledad to begin demolition.
One key point to remember is this: the claims by the disgruntled atheist that he simply opposes having the cross on public property are pure nonsense, since his attorneys moved to prevent the transfer of land twice before to PRIVATE ownership. His objection is not to the cross being on public land, but to it being there at all.
May 21st, 2006 at 12:00 am
Barry:
The Union-Tribune called for Supervisor Bill Horn’s defeat 4 years ago too, in 2002.
“San Diego County’s Fifth Supervisorial District, which covers much of North County, needs a lot of things …. What it does not need is another four years of Bill Horn.” (U-T editorial of Feb 21, 2002).
He managed to win another term that year anyway. FYI.
May 22nd, 2006 at 12:00 am
Let us not forget that Horn barely beat a liberal Democrat in 2002 who hardly ran a campaign. Fast foward to 2006, Horn has a giant scandal unfolding and a legitimate conservative candidate in former Assemblyman Bruce Thompson who has the backing of Issa, Haynes, Hollingsworth and Ron Packard. Like races up and down the State, the X factor in this will be the low Republican turn out on June 6th.
May 22nd, 2006 at 12:00 am
Bill Horn also had an active Republican opponent (Patsy Fritz) in 2002, but
he won outright in the primary anyway.
Horn was counted out by the press in 1998 after being forced into a runoff.
He won in November with 56 % of the vote.
And in another era … some North Vietnamese Army regiments thought
THEY had U.S. Marine officer Bill Horn and his men trapped in the 1960s,
only to find they were on the losing end.
“Experts” have underestimated Bill Horn for 40 years. It does not seem to
bother him too much.
May 22nd, 2006 at 12:00 am
Anyone in doubt if Assemblyman Bruce Thompson will win this thing needs to log on to this website:
http://www.kfmb.com/features/special_assignment/story.php?id=51009#
May 22nd, 2006 at 12:00 am
I meant FORMER Assemblyman Bruce Thompson…sorry.