San Diego Politics Blog

San Diego’s most visible Libertarian, Richard Rider, heads up a group called San Diego Taxfighters.  The taxpayer-rights organization has attracted significant attention over the years for its involvement in San Diego politics.

The group sent out a survey on tax issues to the candidates for the 50th Congressional District.

The Democrat candidates elected not to fill out the survey, but the Libertarian candidate, Paul King, Independent candidate, William David Griffith, and a number of Republican candidates did fill out and return the survey.  Question:  Where are Brian Bilbray and Alan Uke?  Seems like a missed opportunity on Bilbray’s part, and not surprising given Uke’s apparent decision to throw in the towel.

The San Diego Taxfighters then rated the responses, and the Libertarian Paul King came out with the highest score followed by Republicans Howard Kaloogian and Eric Roach.

There have been quite a few emails to this blog about the 52nd Congressional District race, specifically the Democrat candidates.

San Diego Indymedia buzzes about one candidate that seems appealing to some of their folks, John Rinaldi.

Read up on the discussions here.

Good news for Republican Congressional candidate Howard Kaloogian.  His campaign has attracted press attention because of his stance supporting the war in Iraq and the broader war against terrorism.

Bad news for Kaloogian.  The press attention is from the San Francisco Chronicle which probably doesn’t have the largest readership in San Diego.

From the article:

Yet despite the doubts, there remains a core of Republicans in the area who are stalwarts for the president and the Iraq mission.

One is Howard Kaloogian, a Republican candidate for the 50th congressional district seat who said he isn’t surprised that loyal Republicans are showing "a Vietnam-like fatigue'’ on the war. The media and the president are to blame, he said.

"He’s doing excellent on the prosecution of the war,'’ Kaloogian said of Bush, "but he gets a D-minus on promotion of what we’re doing there.'’

Kaloogian, sitting in a local restaurant in Rancho Bernardo while he met with supporters, said his views on Iraq come in part from his fact-finding trip there last July with talk-show hosts and political activists.

"It’s a country of 25 million and 25,000 terrorists,'’ said Kaloogian, a former California assemblyman. "People there believe it’s better today than under Saddam Hussein. … There’s no massacres (as there were) under his killing machine,'’ and Iraqis are being trained to take over the country’s security and military forces. Hospitals and schools are being built, the economy is coming back, and riding on a humvee in the country, he recalled, Americans are "greeted by kids like an ice cream truck.'’

The Words Have Power blog has a recent writeup on a Washington Post story about Mitchell Wade, the man who bribed Congressman "Duke" Cunningham and superheated the San Diego corruption scene.  As the WHP blogger says of Wade, "What he couldn’t buy outright he rented or stole."  Read more here.

Congressional Quarterly writes about the battle for the 50th including discussions and how the race is now starting to get heated.  It also says that analysts expect a very low turnout for the April 11th election.

The article dishes on the dirt being thrown around in this race such as: Bilbray’s ballot designation (and Eric Roach’s opposition), allegations made by Republicans that Democrat Busby improperly used a Cal State San Marcos web page to promote her campaign and allegations that Eric Roach’s former business associate was jailed for pedophilia.

That last tidbit was first reported here at this blog.

But the mudslinging hasn’t ended there. Roach on March 13 went on a local radio show — hosted by Roger Hedgecock, a former San Diego mayor whose political career crashed in the 1980s as the result of campaign ethics controversies — to clear the air about his past business association with a man who is reportedly in jail for pedophilia.

“It’s disgusting,” complained Roach, who said the man in question was an investor in his business back in 1992. “To try to associate me with someone who years later became a disgusting pedophile is just ridiculous. It’s absurd.”

Roach also suggested that the allegation was planted by primary opponents who are worried about his ability to win. “I guess this is the best they could come up with,” Roach said of his critics.

The conservative news website GOPUSA has a news story on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and a survey they conducted of their members/supporters.

The DCCC is pledging to their supporters to make Busby a top priority for the Democrat Party in the 2006 election cycle.

"In the coming months you’ll hear more and more about Democrat Francine Busby running for Duke Cunningham’s vacated seat. We’ve been working with her campaign steadily, and have already made big investments to make sure she has one of the best field programs in the country," the DCCC said.

An interesting item to note.  This morning when I was doing a Google search on Francine Busby an ad came up (right side of the screen) for Eric Roach, right below an ad for Fran Busby.  Try for yourself by looking up Busby via Google here.