It was billled as a U-T columnist's rally to return the Padres to cable TV, and Matthew Hall, bullhorn in hand, worked the crowd like a pro, but congressman and mayoral candidate Bob Filner was clearly the hit of the show with many of the 150 or so people who gathered in front of Petco Park yesterday morning.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdhVWmkq28U&feature=player_embedded
"The Padres get our money, our taxpayers' money," said Filner. "The cable has a public franchise. We can put leverage on them. The mayor should sit down with them and get it done."
"The city has leverage, but they're all bought off by the, you know, cable guys and everything else."
Though Filner's presence at the hour-long event significantly enlived Hall's rally (watch our video report above), an online gallery of 13 photos of the rally subsequently posted by the U-T omitted any images of the liberal Democrat, except for a virtually unidentifiable shot of his distant, unidentified face in the crowd.
The U-T, of course, owned by La Jolla multi-millionaire Republican Doug Manchester, has endorsed Filner's opponent, GOP city councilman Carl DeMaio, and Jeff Light, the newspaper's editor has been heard on tape discussing ways to undermine the congressman's political chances.
“I think we, as an editorial board, do not want to see Bob Filner make it through to the general election,” Light said during an editorial board interview with then-mayoral candidate Nathan Fletcher. “Because the environment around the general election is going to be far more favorable to Filner… so, you know, we certainly want to keep that from happening.”
It was billled as a U-T columnist's rally to return the Padres to cable TV, and Matthew Hall, bullhorn in hand, worked the crowd like a pro, but congressman and mayoral candidate Bob Filner was clearly the hit of the show with many of the 150 or so people who gathered in front of Petco Park yesterday morning.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdhVWmkq28U&feature=player_embedded
"The Padres get our money, our taxpayers' money," said Filner. "The cable has a public franchise. We can put leverage on them. The mayor should sit down with them and get it done."
"The city has leverage, but they're all bought off by the, you know, cable guys and everything else."
Though Filner's presence at the hour-long event significantly enlived Hall's rally (watch our video report above), an online gallery of 13 photos of the rally subsequently posted by the U-T omitted any images of the liberal Democrat, except for a virtually unidentifiable shot of his distant, unidentified face in the crowd.
The U-T, of course, owned by La Jolla multi-millionaire Republican Doug Manchester, has endorsed Filner's opponent, GOP city councilman Carl DeMaio, and Jeff Light, the newspaper's editor has been heard on tape discussing ways to undermine the congressman's political chances.
“I think we, as an editorial board, do not want to see Bob Filner make it through to the general election,” Light said during an editorial board interview with then-mayoral candidate Nathan Fletcher. “Because the environment around the general election is going to be far more favorable to Filner… so, you know, we certainly want to keep that from happening.”