DeMaio Misinfo Text Campaign Boosts Bry for Mayor
A former Republican San Diego City Councilman and (now) KOGO talk show host is using his PAC to run a misinformation campaign designed to encourage people to vote for mayoral candidate Barbara Bry.
Thousands of San Diegans received this text yesterday:
“Todd Gloria put our kids at risk by voting to shield sex offenders who sexually abuse minor children. Vote against him.“
Not included in the quote above was a link to a website created by Reform California, DeMaio’s PAC created to facilitate his political career.
This text is about SB 145, passed by the legislature and signed by the governor, which cleaned up statutory language concerning judicial discretion in sex offender cases.
Sponsored by the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office and introduced by Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat from San Francisco, SB 145 has now been morphed into a lie claiming California has legalized pedophilia.
Since GOP/Anon trolls have taken to Twitter to call me pro-pedophile for calling out this lie being propagated by Carl DeMaio, here are fact checks explaining what SB 145 really does:
CBS8 | USA Today | Reuters | LA Times | Snopes | Politifact
It’s got to be a weird experience as a Democrat to know that you’ve got a Republican low-life like Carl DeMaio shilling for your campaign. DeMaio’s so bad even Republicans I know bad-mouth him.
In case you haven’t been keeping up with Carl’s political career, he’s got a talk show on KOGO where he does his best to stoke outrage. His attempt last spring at running for Duncan Hunter’s old seat failed, his attempt to “repeal the gas tax” failed, as did his attempt to organize a recall vote of Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Currently Reform California is campaigning against Proposition 15 (split property tax roll), against Measure A (Housing for Homeless) and for Proposition 20 (roll back citizen-approved criminal justice reforms).
As I and others have pointed out, Mayoral candidate Barbara Bry’s campaign has taken a decidedly rightward turn, most likely because all the institutional (what she calls “Special Interests) support among Democrats was locked up behind Todd Gloria.
From the YIMBYs are maybe as bad as antifa motifs to the they’re coming for your neighborhood, to her for support Uber/Lyft’s attempts to write personalized labor laws for their employees and the you gotta be sober first approach to homeless housing, there are undeniable dog whistles being blown toward the cabin cruiser set in San Diego.
You gotta dig for votes somewhere, and that’s exactly what she’s doing.
Bry’s campaign took to Twitter yesterday to correct my initial impression that these texts were coming from her campaign.
What her campaign wouldn’t do was denounce the misrepresentation baked into DeMaio’s missives.
https://twitter.com/eqca/status/1313604623081459712?s=20
Mayoral candidate Todd Gloria’s supporters released a statement late in the afternoon denouncing the texts and pointing out that --as she has on at least one earlier occasion-- Bry refuses to condemn the lies.
“Today, our campaign learned that Carl DeMaio, in his effort to support Barbara Bry, sent patently false and illegal text messages to voters attacking me. We have been made aware that these texts violated campaign disclosure laws and have been reported to the FPPC.
“Unfortunately, this is the second time Barbara Bry has refused to denounce the homophobic actions of her supporters. Yet again, I am calling on her to do so because homophobia has no place in San Diego.
“Today’s illegal action by Carl DeMaio and inaction from Barbara Bry is just another proof point that my opponent would rather rip our city apart than bring us together. San Diegans should reject their politics of division and choose a brighter future for our city that is inclusive of all of us.”
This might be just another instance of municipal mud slinging, except for the GOP candidates supportive of cult group QAnon all over the country repeating similar lies against Democratic candidates.
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