As of late, there has been quite a bit of speculation on the race between incumbent Bill Horn (disclosure – former employer and former client) and Bruce Thompson for San Diego County’s 5th Supervisorial District. Obviously, Horn has been under some fire from the local media in regards to various disclosure errors he, and maybe his Chief of Staff, made in regard to a particular rental property. Certainly the Union-Tribune, never a fan of Horn in particular and North County politics in general, has taken the much awaited opportunity to land some blows. But to a certain degree, unless there is more, I think North County voters are accustomed to Supervisor Horn under fire from the establishment and their media organs. Without a well funded comparison campaign, its hard to believe these issues are going to have a major impact on the results.
Which leads us to the importance of the next week or so. Thompson (pictured to the left) supporters point out at every opportunity that Thompson has the capability of self-financing his campaign. This may in fact be the case – and if it is that money is going to need to start moving into his campaign account right away in order to start funding voter contact programs. Thompson has a very short couple of weeks before absentee ballots drop and about three weeks until voters are casting ballots. If Thompson is going to make a move with personal money, its gonna have to be pdq. Rumors also abound about the possibility of an IE campaign against Horn or for Thompson from one or more North County Indian reservations. I don’t have any evidence one way or the other, but again if this is the case they’d need to start now, and its not exactly the best thing strategically for this kind of IE to be funding a campaign this far out. So, in short, follow the money over the next ten days and that should determine whether or not there will be a race or not.
In the last couple days I got an email from the Thompson campaign touting an "internal automated 
poll" showing Thompson ahead of Horn (pictured to the right). I’ve asked for more details, and if legitimate I’ll publish the results. But off the cuff I find it hard to believe the Thompson campaign would not widely and immediately circulate the results of such a poll if legitimate. I’m generally wary of automated polls, and even more wary of ‘internal automated polls’! Give me some actual numbers and a legitimate polling firm, Bruce, and I’ll publish.
Finally, there is widespread discussion about the events at the closed door Republican Central Committee endorsement meeting of April 10, wherein the GOP chose to endorse no candidate in the 5th Supervisorial District. This is not helpful to Horn. It deprives him of the single most useful endorsement in North San Diego County, and an endorsement that would have brought firepower against a challenger from the right. Normally, during an endorsement meeting, I’m on the floor and could offer a first hand perspective, but in this case I was in Sacramento and unavailable. But I’ve had at least two dozen conversations on the topic, from all sides, and here is my take: on the day of the endorsement proceeding Horn’s people were scrambling to get a list of Central Committee members, and had not even started the process of securing votes or making sure their folks were going to turn out for the meeting. Thompson, some of his legislative allies, and a few of the permanently disgruntled on the Committee did their homework, locked up enough votes to block an endorsement, and made sure their people were there. Taking an endorsement of this magnitude for granted in a possibly contested campaign was an error by whatever Horn operatives were tasked with the job.