{"id":5020,"date":"2017-05-26T14:45:37","date_gmt":"2017-05-26T21:45:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=5020"},"modified":"2017-05-26T14:45:37","modified_gmt":"2017-05-26T21:45:37","slug":"corporate-lobbyist-wins-calif-dem-chair-race-strange-pedophilia-rumor-defense-michael-sainato","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2017\/05\/26\/corporate-lobbyist-wins-calif-dem-chair-race-strange-pedophilia-rumor-defense-michael-sainato\/","title":{"rendered":"“Corporate Lobbyist Wins Calif. Dem Chair Race After Strange Pedophilia Rumor Defense” by Michael Sainato"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Bauman lives up to his reputation of playing dirty politics<\/h3>\n
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Eric Bauman. Eric Bauman\/Facebook<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

May 17, 2017 (observer.com)<\/p>\n

The\u00a0California<\/a>\u00a0Democratic Party<\/a>\u00a0chair race turned into a closely contested race between establishment candidate and\u00a0corporate lobbyist<\/a>\u00a0Eric Bauman, who currently serves as vice chair, and Kimberly Ellis, a San Francisco activist backed by the National Nurses Union and Our Revolution. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom\u00a0endorsed<\/a>\u00a0both candidates\u00a0ahead of the election on May 20, though\u00a0Sanders<\/a>\u00a0supporters rallied behind Ellis, who acknowledges the\u00a0Democratic Party<\/a>\u00a0has lost its way and focused\u00a0on progressive\u00a0issues like\u00a0single payer<\/a>\u00a0health care despite supporting\u00a0Clinton<\/a>\u00a0in the primaries.<\/p>\n

Bauman, a Democratic Party insider whose election was initially\u00a0viewed<\/a>\u00a0as a\u00a0sure thing<\/a>, has lived up to\u00a0his description<\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0the LA Weekly\u00a0in 2011 as\u00a0\u201ca\u00a0professional Democrat<\/a>\u00a0and behind-the-scenes power player who has a reputation for playing hard-ball politics and not always being a nice guy.\u201d On May 20, his tactics paid off as he managed to fend off Ellis\u2019 surge, capturing\u00a060 more delegate votes<\/a>\u00a0out of nearly 3,000 cast. Ellis has not yet conceded and is consulting with attorneys on how to push for a recount.<\/p>\n

On May 7, the\u00a0Los Angeles Times<\/em>\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0Bauman sent an email to California\u00a0Democrats\u00a0alleging he is being falsely targeted with rumors that he engages in \u201cinappropriate behavior with 14- and 16-year-old boys.\u201d Bauman didn\u2019t cite or provide evidence of the rumors. Instead, he cited that a few people within his campaign had heard them. He told\u00a0the Los Angeles Times <\/em>that\u00a0by addressing the rumor, \u201cI sort of in a way spread the thing.\u201d He claimed he wasn\u2019t accusing his opponent of being behind it.<\/p>\n

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The email sent out implies otherwise. \u201cThe members of party cannot go around acting like Donald\u00a0Trump\u00a0and his alt-right gang of thugs and expect voters to see us differently,\u201d he wrote in the email. He continued:<\/p>\n

I want to say plainly: we Democrats cannot, must not accept or tolerate the spreading of despicable lies like this.<\/strong>\u00a0It means we are no better than Trump with his character assassination tactics.\u00a0WE MUST REFUSE TO ALLOW PEOPLE WHO CLAIM TO BE DEMOCRATS TO GET AWAY WITH THIS TYPE OF HEINOUS AND OBNOXIOUS BEHAVIOR!\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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His opponent\u2019s campaign denounced the rumors shortly after the email was sent out. California State Party delegate Greg Diamond alleged in a\u00a0blog post<\/a>\u00a0that Bauman fabricated the existence of the rumors for political gain. It\u2019s unclear if political motives inspired the email, but it is strange that Bauman felt obligated to defend rumors that can\u2019t be traced on the internet other than from what publications have covered in his defense against them.<\/p>\n

As the California\u00a0Democratic Party<\/a>\u00a0Chair race unfolded, several\u00a0Bernie Sanders\u00a0<\/a>supporters denounced Eric Bauman for his divisive rhetoric and behavior toward progressives within the party. On May 16, Los Angeles activist Lauren Steiner\u00a0reshared<\/a>\u00a0a video from 2015 of a dinner with several California\u00a0Democratic Party<\/a>\u00a0organizers during which\u00a0Bauman angrily confronted Steiner for asking a couple political questions. She wrote in a Facebook\u00a0post<\/a>\u00a0after the incident occurred, \u201cHe left his seat, moved directly in front of me, jabbed his finger in my face, yelled and cursed at me, talked over me when I tried to defend myself, called me \u2018honey\u2019 twice and accused me of \u2018bully tactics.\u2019 When my friend stood in between to create some distance, he said, \u2018I\u2019m not going to hit her.\u2019 Two men had to intervene to pull him away.\u201d<\/p>\n

On May 17,\u00a0Sanders<\/a>\u00a0supporter and activist Yolanda Varela Gonzalez openly denounced Bauman in a Facebook\u00a0live stream<\/a>\u00a0over similar altercations with him. \u201cThat was my first experience with Eric Bauman, to be told to sit down and shut up,\u201d Gonzalez said in reference to a\u00a0Democratic Party<\/a>\u00a0summit in Fall 2015 at which she called out a speaker for alleging that all of Sanders\u2019 supporters are old, white men. She also noted that Clinton was repeatedly referred to as the\u00a0Democratic<\/a>\u00a0presidential nominee at the time by party leadership. Tearing up, Gonzalez recalled that\u00a0Bauman intimidatingly poked her in the chest during a conversation at the same event.<\/p>\n

Bauman\u2019s consulting firm has a recent record of fighting progressive causes. The San Francisco Chronicle<\/em>\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0in June 2016 that Bauman was receiving $12,500 a month from the pharmaceutical industry to lobby against a proposition that would \u201ccap the price that any state agency or care program could spend on prescription drugs at what the federal Department of Veterans Affairs pays.\u201d Bauman received these payments while earning a six figure salary as an adviser to the California Assembly Speaker, Anthony Rendon.<\/p>\n

The Democratic<\/a>\u00a0establishment\u2019s failure to fully support that proposition further inspired Sanders <\/a>supporters, already enthused to get involved in politics by Sanders\u2019<\/a>\u00a0campaign, to\u00a0take over\u00a0<\/a>a majority of the California Democratic Party\u2019s<\/a>delegates in January 2017. The race for the State Party chair became an extension of that battle, and the party establishment is\u00a0pulling the same dirty tricks and manipulations it became known\u00a0for in the 2016 Democratic<\/a>\u00a0presidential primaries.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Bauman lives up to his reputation of playing dirty politics Eric Bauman. Eric Bauman\/Facebook May 17, 2017 (observer.com) The\u00a0California\u00a0Democratic Party\u00a0chair race turned into a closely contested race between establishment candidate and\u00a0corporate lobbyist\u00a0Eric Bauman, who currently serves as vice chair, and Kimberly Ellis, a San Francisco activist backed by the… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5020"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5020"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5021,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5020\/revisions\/5021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}