Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

DeMaio Critics Bash Recent Endorsements, Refusal to Debate

Carl DeMaio and his mayoral campaign have been drawing fire from several directions in recent weeks.

First, there’s the San Diego LGBT Weekly. Last week, the paper published an editorial criticizing recent endorsements the openly gay DeMaio’s campaign has picked up.

DeMaio backer, former mayor, and AM radio conservative talk host Roger Hedgecock is one of the eye-raisers. Hedgecock has in the past petitioned for a protest group he headed, called “Normal People,” to be allowed to march in Hillcrest’s annual Pride parade. He’s referred to homosexuals as “the radical leftist gay and lesbian community,” and campaigned heavily to get Proposition 8, which created a state law to deny gays the right to marry, on the ballot.

Republican politician and municipal judge Larry Stirling, another recent endorser of DeMaio’s candidacy, also draws ire from the LGBT community. According to LGBT Weekly, Stirling consistently voted against measures beneficial to gays while a member of California’s Assembly and Senate. On the bench, he earned the nickname “Lysol Larry” after ordering his entire courtroom sanitized after the appearance of a HIV-positive defendant in 1991, according to the Los Angeles Times.

“Hedgecock and Stirling still do not believe in LGBT equality. What did DeMaio discuss with homophobes Hedgecock and Stirling to secure their support?” asks LGBT Weekly. “Was there a promise to put LGBT equality on the back burner if elected, or worse, a promise to not promote any items on the LGBT equality agenda?”

Doug Porter of the local progressive news website OB Rag has also been critical of DeMaio. One of Porter’s complaints centers around DeMaio’s aversion to attending mayoral forums and debates. According to an October 1 article, DeMaio had previously used the excuse of being too busy petitioning for his plan to alter city worker pension benefits to show up to debates. Since turning in the signatures to get the pension measure on the ballot, DeMaio has remained absent from the forums, including skipping an October 19 mayoral debate put on by the Coalition For a Better San Diego, a union-supported group. Bonnie Dumanis, another Republican candidate, also declined to attend, leaving Democrat Bob Filner to share the stage with Nathan Fletcher, one of the three Republicans in an officially non-partisan race.

Porter has also criticized DeMaio’s campaign for focusing primarily on affluent, predominantly white neighborhoods. DeMaio’s District 5, with a 2008 median household income of $95,211, is the second wealthiest in the city.

Jim Miller, co-author of Under the Perfect Sun: The San Diego Tourists Never See, also gets his shots in, saying that DeMaio’s agenda “is connected to a larger, nationwide web of think tanks whose decades-long intellectual assault on unions, the public sector, and even the very notion of government is now bearing fruit from Wisconsin to California,” in another OB Rag post, which he quotes in a more recent article on wage disparity in San Diego on the same site.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all

Previous article

Big swordfish, big marlin, and big money

Trout opener at Santee Lakes
Next Article

Wild Wild Wets, Todo Mundo, Creepy Creeps, Laura Cantrell, Graham Nancarrow

Rock, Latin reggae, and country music in Little Italy, Oceanside, Carlsbad, Harbor Island

Carl DeMaio and his mayoral campaign have been drawing fire from several directions in recent weeks.

First, there’s the San Diego LGBT Weekly. Last week, the paper published an editorial criticizing recent endorsements the openly gay DeMaio’s campaign has picked up.

DeMaio backer, former mayor, and AM radio conservative talk host Roger Hedgecock is one of the eye-raisers. Hedgecock has in the past petitioned for a protest group he headed, called “Normal People,” to be allowed to march in Hillcrest’s annual Pride parade. He’s referred to homosexuals as “the radical leftist gay and lesbian community,” and campaigned heavily to get Proposition 8, which created a state law to deny gays the right to marry, on the ballot.

Republican politician and municipal judge Larry Stirling, another recent endorser of DeMaio’s candidacy, also draws ire from the LGBT community. According to LGBT Weekly, Stirling consistently voted against measures beneficial to gays while a member of California’s Assembly and Senate. On the bench, he earned the nickname “Lysol Larry” after ordering his entire courtroom sanitized after the appearance of a HIV-positive defendant in 1991, according to the Los Angeles Times.

“Hedgecock and Stirling still do not believe in LGBT equality. What did DeMaio discuss with homophobes Hedgecock and Stirling to secure their support?” asks LGBT Weekly. “Was there a promise to put LGBT equality on the back burner if elected, or worse, a promise to not promote any items on the LGBT equality agenda?”

Doug Porter of the local progressive news website OB Rag has also been critical of DeMaio. One of Porter’s complaints centers around DeMaio’s aversion to attending mayoral forums and debates. According to an October 1 article, DeMaio had previously used the excuse of being too busy petitioning for his plan to alter city worker pension benefits to show up to debates. Since turning in the signatures to get the pension measure on the ballot, DeMaio has remained absent from the forums, including skipping an October 19 mayoral debate put on by the Coalition For a Better San Diego, a union-supported group. Bonnie Dumanis, another Republican candidate, also declined to attend, leaving Democrat Bob Filner to share the stage with Nathan Fletcher, one of the three Republicans in an officially non-partisan race.

Porter has also criticized DeMaio’s campaign for focusing primarily on affluent, predominantly white neighborhoods. DeMaio’s District 5, with a 2008 median household income of $95,211, is the second wealthiest in the city.

Jim Miller, co-author of Under the Perfect Sun: The San Diego Tourists Never See, also gets his shots in, saying that DeMaio’s agenda “is connected to a larger, nationwide web of think tanks whose decades-long intellectual assault on unions, the public sector, and even the very notion of government is now bearing fruit from Wisconsin to California,” in another OB Rag post, which he quotes in a more recent article on wage disparity in San Diego on the same site.

Sponsored
Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Peters Scores LGBT Endorsement

Next Article

Local Republican endorsement slate rolled out

Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader