AP Calls It: DeMaio Has Lost

Carl DeMaio Burns Inside

From the California GOP, which notes that DeMaio has won the endorsement of the San Diego U-T, whose owner was a major backer of Prop 8.

Yet Another Carl DeMaio Scandal

Another day, another scandal for homocon US House candidate Carl DeMaio, whose campaign is now being accused of secretly authoring a UT San Diego editorial that slammed his opponent, Democratic Rep. Scott Peters.

Controversial and highly disputed emails provided to NBC 7 Investigates include statements from Congressional candidate Carl DeMaio where he appears to be bragging about his campaign writing a UT San Diego editorial that was highly critical of DeMaio’s opponent and had a “UT San Diego editorial board” byline. Former DeMaio staffer Todd Bosnich said he and campaign spokesman Dave McCulloch were the authors of an editorial entitled “Scott Peters and the Mount Soledad Shuffle.” The emails provided to NBC 7 indicate that after the editorial ran, McCulloch reached out to a consultant, other campaign staff and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) boasting that “UT San Diego scorched Peters over the Soledad Cross today, saying ‘Peters has a history of being both slippery and insubstantive’ and that ‘rewriting his own history and ducking responsibility for his actions have always come easy to Scott Peters.’" In response, Alleigh Marree of the NRCC said: “This is great. Will be able to use these lines A LOT.” In the email thread provided to NBC 7 Investigates, DeMaio wrote back, “Well, we did wrote (sic) it ourselves.”

The UT San Diego is denying NBC's claims. The paper is owned by major Prop 8 donor and hotel mogul Doug Manchester, whose properties were targeted with boycotts in the wake of the referendum's passage. DeMaio has financial ties with Manchester that go back more than a decade and the paper has endorsed DeMaio. A poll issued early this week showed DeMaio and Peters in a dead heat. Their race is one of the most closely watched in the nation.

San Diego Paper Calls For Splitting CA Into Separate Liberal & Wingnut States

From the editorial board of the San Diego Union-Times, which is owned by Tea Party nut and major Prop 8 backer Doug Manchester:

It may not be necessary to destroy California in order to fix it. But it may be necessary to cut it in two, carving out a 51st state of New California where taxes are low, regulations are few and where politicians are not the lap dogs of the public-employee labor unions. [snip] Regardless of which counties might ultimately be included, The U-T San Diego ownership thinks secessionist proponents are onto something. In the end, New California ought to include any counties seeking a new beginning without the tax and regulatory burdens and the Nanny State mentality of the existing California — and that could end up being just about the entire state other than the coastal strip from Los Angeles through Mendocino or Humboldt counties, along with Sacramento.

For the right-wing "New California," the board calls for ending tenure for public school teachers, abolishing the state income tax, banning mandatory union membership, and banning all government pensions. (The above map is just one of several proposed divisions.)

SAN DIEGO: Anti-Gay Activist Turns Local Newspaper Into Wingnut Mouthpiece

San Diego hotel magnate and Proposition 8 backer Doug Manchester bought the local daily newspaper last year. And since then the paper has become a relentless shill for anti-gay and anti-progressive causes. The New York Times observes:

Mr. Manchester is anti-big government, anti-tax and anti-gay marriage. And he’s in favor of a remade San Diego centered around a new downtown waterfront stadium and arena. Public agencies that have not gotten the hint have found themselves investigated in the news pages of The U-T. A sports columnist who was skeptical of the plans found himself out of a job, and the newspaper has published front-page editorials and wraparound sections to promote political allies who share its agenda. According to several employees at the paper, a feature called “Making a Difference” has included flattering profiles of many of Mr. Manchester’s associates. The oddest part? Mr. Manchester and the chief executive, John T. Lynch, who also owns part of the paper, are completely open about their motives. “We make no apologies,” Mr. Lynch said by telephone on Friday. “We are doing what a newspaper ought to do, which is to take positions. We are very consistent — pro-conservative, pro-business, pro-military — and we are trying to make a newspaper that gets people excited about this city and its future.”

BACKGROUND: After Manchester's $125,000 donation to Protect Marriage was made public, a boycott of his San Diego hotels was launched, costing the properties millions in lost convention business. Manchester then offered LGBT groups blocks of free hotel rooms with a value that equaled his Prop 8 donation, an olive branch that was refused. In 2009 Manchester's wife of 43 years launched an ugly divorce proceeding that included claims that he had forged her name on an $8M tax refund check. In 2010 his hotel hosted the wedding of Ladyfingers Prejean. Manchester has been lauded by GOProud, who broke the boycott and hosted an event at one of his hotels.

"Marriage Defender" Doug Manchester Buys San Diego's Daily Newspaper

Hotel kingpin and Prop 8 backer Doug Manchester has purchased San Diego's Union-Tribune for $110 million. And locals can expect some big changes.

What happens when that brash, bold, confrontational man steps into the newsroom of the region's largest newspaper? John Lynch, the former local radio executive who will become the newspaper's new president and CEO, offered a preview Thursday night of that future. Some parts of the paper may stay the same. Lynch and Manchester want its publisher, Ed Moss, and its editor, Jeff Light, to stay. Lynch said he doesn't foresee the print product disappearing for at least a decade. But Lynch said he wants the paper to be pro-business. The sports page to be pro-Chargers stadium. And reporters to become stars. "It's news information, but it's also show biz," Lynch said. "You get people to tune in and read your site or the paper when there's an 'Oh wow' in the paper."

BACKGROUND: After Manchester's $125,000 donation to Protect Marriage was made public, a boycott of his San Diego hotels was launched, costing the properties millions in lost convention business. Manchester then offered LGBT groups blocks of free hotel rooms with a value that equaled his Prop 8 donation, an olive branch that was refused. In 2009 Manchester's wife of 43 years launched an ugly divorce proceeding that included claims that he had forged her name on an $8M tax refund check. Last year his hotel hosted the wedding of Ladyfingers Prejean.

Miss Ladyfingers USA To Get Opposite Married In Gay-Boycotted Hotel

Tomorrow Carrie Ladyfingers Prejean will opposite marry NFL quarterback Kyle Boller in San Diego. And in a deliberate final "fuck you" to the gays, she's booked the wedding at Doug Manchester's Grand Del Mar Hotel. Manchester's hotels have been boycotted and picketed by gays and gay-friendly organizations ever since it was revealed that he contributed more than $125,000 to Protect Marriage. Manchester has tried to end the boycott, which has cost him millions in convention business, by offering free rooms and meeting space to LGBT groups, all of whom have refused. Last August, Doug "Sanctity of Marriage" Manchester ditched his wife of 43 years in an ugly divorce that included accusations that he forged her endorsement on an $8.2M tax refund check.

Hundreds Rally At SD Manchester Hyatt

With the boycott of the San Diego Manchester Hyatt now in its second year, hundreds rallied outside the hotel yesterday to protest that the American Historical Society chose to cross picket lines and hold a convention there. Rex Wockner:

Close to 300 people staged a raucous demonstration at the Manchester Grand Hyatt hotel in San Diego on Jan. 9 to protest the American Historical Association's decision to go ahead with its annual meeting there rather than honor the gay boycott of the hotel. The boycott was launched in mid-2008 after hotel owner Doug Manchester donated $125,000 to the campaign to put Proposition 8 on the ballot. The constitutional amendment passed in November 2008, repealing same-sex marriage in California.The AHA said its contracts with the Hyatt were in place long before anyone had heard of Prop 8 and that it would have cost the association around $800,000 to move the Jan. 7-10 convention. Instead, the AHA staged a free-to-the-public, 15-part miniconvention at the Hyatt "to explore historical perspectives on same-sex marriage."

More coverage and more photos on Wockner's site.

Great Nationwide Kiss-In Round Up

In San Diego, activists invaded Doug Manchester's Grand Hyatt.

"Defender Of Marriage" Hotel Kingpin Doug Manchester Embroiled In Ugly Divorce

San Diego hotelier Doug Manchester, whose $125,000 donation kick-started funding for Yes On 8, is in the midst of an ugly divorce with his wife of 43 years. Manchester's wife has accused him of hiding his assets and cutting off her access to living expenses. She also alleges that Manchester forged her endorsement on a joint $8.2M tax refund check and refuses to give up her share.

Several months ago, Manchester offered $125,000 in room credits for his hotels to LGBT activists, hoping to end the successful year-long boycott of his properties. Nobody bit and the boycott continues.

Ooh, I can't wait to hear what prompted the divorce.

San Diego Activists Refuse To End Boycott Of Manchester Hotels

Last week San Diego hotelier Doug Manchester offered the LGBT community a total of $125K in cash and room credits to call off their year-long boycott, which arose over Manchester's financial backing of Proposition 8. The offer came via famed gay PR king Howard Bragman, whom Manchester had hired for the project. But nobody is biting.

The Human Rights Campaign announced it would not accept the $25,000, and Fred Karger of Californians Against Hate says his coalition is not budging. Manchester’s offer of $100,000 in hotel credits and services merely seeks to divide the GLBT community on the boycott, he says. Manchester and Bragman had hoped to bypass such boycott organizers by taking the offer right to gay travel professionals, the press and the blogosphere, and at first some may have been tempted by his offer of $100,000 in free hotel credits to deserving San Diego GLBT groups and puzzled by his sudden concern about local GLBT groups.

After all, it’s a very difficult time for nonprofits, and that kind of gesture is not insignificant. Bragman was banking on groups taking advantage of the free room and meeting credits crossing the picket lines. In turn, he hoped Manchester could claim he was actually helping local groups and thereby marginalize Karger and his coalition.But Karger and his coalition of community and union leaders stood firm. No local organization would cross a picket line or take money. With the boycott as well known as it is, who would even show up for the event, knowing there is an ongoing GLBT and labor boycott?

And the boycott, which insiders say has cost the company millions, rolls on.

Crying Uncle: Boycott Forces San Diego Hotelier To Donate To LGBT Causes

Almost a year into what some have called a very effective boycott of his businesses, San Diego hotelier Doug Manchester is preparing to donate an amount to LGBT organizations that equals his $125,000 Prop 8 donation. The donation will likely partially come in the form of hotel credits that local LGBT groups can use for fundraising.

Manchester, a devout Catholic, gave $125,000 to get Proposition 8 on the ballot last year. He wasn't against gays and lesbians, he said, just the marrying part. Gays and lesbians decided they weren't against the Hyatt, considered a gay-friendly company, just the Manchester part. In July, the boycott began. Manchester brushed it off at first, but he seems to feel otherwise now: His plan – which his people warned this newspaper against publishing, even after a Hyatt representative discussed it – is to give $25,000 to a national organization that promotes civil unions and domestic partnerships. Manchester also is considering offering $100,000 in hotel credit to local gay and lesbian organizations so they can use the Grand Hyatt for events such as fundraisers. The $125,000 total matches what he gave to Proposition 8. So it would be even-steven. “He's trying to clarify his views,” said Kelly Commerford, director of marketing for the Grand Hyatt, one of the largest hotels on the West Coast. “He's not discriminatory. He's supportive of this community. He realizes he offended people.”

Credit goes to Fred Karger's Californians Against Hate, who started the boycott. Major conventions, including one for the American Trial Lawyers Association, have moved their business from Manchester-owned hotels since the boycott began.

"Boycott" Projected Onto San Diego's Manchester Grand Hyatt

Rex Wockner reports a cool moment from San Diego's Eve Of Justice rally:

After the rally, the 600 people in attendance took to the streets of downtown chanting, "Separate church and state." They marched up to the epicenter of downtown, Fourth and Broadway, then back to the Hall of Justice. At the march's end, ralliers looked south and saw that someone was projecting the word "Boycott" across nine stories of the Manchester Grand Hyatt hotel. Gays have been boycotting the hotel since last summer after owner Doug Manchester donated $125,000 to the campaign to get Prop 8 on the ballot.

Love it.

(Photo credit: Rex Wockner)

Gays Picket Bill Clinton At Boycotted San Diego Hotel

Rex Wockner reports:

About 200 GLBT activists and union activists picketed the Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego on Feb. 15 as former President Bill Clinton spoke inside to the International Franchise Association. The protesters were upset that Clinton "crossed a picket line" to speak at the association's annual convention. Gays have been boycotting the hotel since last summer because owner Doug Manchester donated $125,000 to the campaign to get Proposition 8 on the November ballot. Passed by 52 percent of voters Nov. 4, Prop 8 re-banned same-sex marriage in California five months after the state Supreme court legalized it. No representative of the IFA was available to speak to media, and hotel officials said Clinton would not be available to reporters either. The officials prohibited a reporter from accessing the floor on which the convention was taking place.

According to Wockner, four activists including NAMES Project founder Cleve Jones and Courage Campaign chairman Rick Jacobs entered the hotel to attempt to deliver a 30,000 name petition asking Clinton to observe their boycott. They were not successful.

(Photo Credit: Rex Wockner)

San Diego Hyatt CFO: Gay Boycott Could Cost Millions

As LGBT and labor groups continue their boycott of Doug Manchester's hotel properties in San Diego, the CFO of the company has warned executives that the losses may be in the millions. Several large groups have canceled conventions at the hotel since the boycott launched.

Officials at the Manchester Financial Group have argued for weeks that a boycott by gay rights and union groups hasn't hurt business at its two San Diego hotels, the Manchester Grand Hyatt and The Grand Del Mar. But a top company official, in an e-mail obtained by The San Diego Union-Tribune, painted a different picture, saying the boycott could have dire consequences for hotel owner Doug Manchester that could cost him millions of dollars in lost business.

In a July 29 e-mail to Manchester, Paul Wilkins, chief financial officer for the group, said he believed “this boycott effort will cost you millions of dollars of lost revenue and possibly tens of millions of dollars in lost value for both the Manchester Grand Hyatt and The Grand Del Mar.”

Wilkins, who did not return several phone calls seeking comment, also warned about the dangers of alienating the gay community, which he called a “large and very affluent market segment.” Further, he said The Grand Del Mar “is still struggling financially” 10 months after opening and the “absolute last thing The Grand needs right now is a boycott.”

Wilkins warned that the boycott could extend to the entire Hyatt chain, earning the San Diego franchise the wrath of the parent company. The boycott was launched when it was learned that franchise owner Doug Manchester had donated $125K to organizers of the anti-gay marriage referendum.

At the NLGJA convention in DC last weekend, I met Fred Karger of Californians Against Hate, a pro-gay marriage group that organized in response to Doug Manchester's donation. Go to their site for the latest updates on the boycott and for news on the status of Proposition 8.

[Photo Credit: Peter Tatchell at the Manchester Hyatt by Rex Wockner]

San Diego Hyatt Boycott Launches

Rex Wockner has some great coverage of this weekend's protest outside of the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego. Last week a boycott of the hotel was announced by LGBT groups and a hotel employees union after the hotel's owner, Doug Manchester, was revealed to have made a $125K donation to the campaign to overturn gay marriage. According to Wockner, about 200 protesters (including Gilbert Baker and Peter Tatchell) rallied outside the hotel as an anti-gay group counter-protested nearby.

Boycott Launched Against CA Hotelier

A coalition of marriage equality advocates and a hotel workers union in California are calling for a boycott of Hyatt hotels owned by San Diego tycoon Doug Manchester after he donated $125K in support of Proposition 8, the November ballot measure that would overturn gay marriage.

The group's message Thursday was to urge residents and tourists to stay at other hotels. The boycott call comes at the height of the summer and just one week before the start of the 2008 Gay Pride festivities in San Diego, during which 200,000 attendees are expected to attend, according to festival organizers.

"San Diego is united in its outrage at the Manchester's funding of the initiative to outlaw marriage equality," said Todd Gloria, candidate for San Diego City Council. "I believe that all fair-minded San Diegans should take a stand against discrimination and boycott the Manchester Hyatt."

Brigette Browning, president of San Diego's Hotel Workers Union, also stood in support of the boycott. "We believe it is pure and simple discrimination," she told NBC 7/39. We believe equality for workers is just as important for gay and lesbians." Browning also accused Manchester of discriminating against his gay workers and discriminating against women by "forcing housekeepers to clean more rooms that housekeepers do at other Hyatt hotels."

In response to the union's support, "ex-gay" nutjob James Hartline is asking the 20,000 weekly readers of his newsletter, Conservative Christian News, to begin a tip boycott of union workers.

"Since you have decided to make your line of work a political issue in opposition to our views on homosexuality and marriage than we can no longer support giving your workers extra money," wrote Hartline, who supports the ban, in an e-mail to the president of Unite Here Local 30. "We are much bigger than you and will follow through with this stand," Hartline wrote.

Dan Rottenstreich, spokesman for Unite Here Local 30, said his organization is not worried. "If Mr. Hartline, and Manchester's other allies, seek to organize Christians against fair pay, basic decency and generosity, we wish him good luck," he said. "We will continue to educate the public about Manchester's discrimination against gays and the lack of job security for workers at the Manchester Hyatt."

You may remember Hartline for claiming that last October's fires in Southern California were due to Jeebus being mad about the passage of SB777, the anti-bullying law. Apparently, Jeebus doesn't tip sinners either.