During normal business hours today, Sherry Hodges officially announced she is a candidate for the 74th Assembly District in San Diego county. How she gets away with that while serving simultaneously as Assemblywoman Diane Harkey’s Chief of Staff in the 73rd Assembly District in neighboring Orange County has more than one taxpayer’s head shaking. Taxpayer’s in the 73rd surely did not get a full day of constituent service from Harkey’s office today. But perhaps as troubling was Hodge’s endorsement list, sent out with Hodges’s announcement information, which lists the endorsement of Vista City Councilman Steve GRONKE. Gronke is well known in San Diego GOP circles for abandoning his Republican registration in the summer of 2009 to run with $100,000 of public employee union I.E. support vs. Bill Horn, the most conservative SD County Supervisor [and Purple Heart & Bronze Star awardee in Vietnam].
Gronke had been a Democrat for 13 years (1982-95), then registered in Perot’s Reform party (1995-
2000), before switching to the GOP just before his first Vista council race in 2000. Then he flipped to Independent in 2009 to please Labor bosses who dislike incumbent San Diego GOP Supervisor Bill Horn. The ‘United Domestic Workers’ union spent $100,000 on an “IE” to help Councilman Gronke in a brutal challenge to Horn last November, but liberal Gronke lost 53% to 47%. No thinking, sophisticated conservative candidate would include Gronke on their endorsement list in this highly GOP 74th Assembly seat.