San Diego County Supervisor Bill Horn may find his re-election chances further diminished by yesterday’s disclosure that he spent time with convicted Republican felon Randy “Duke” Cunningham on his yacht the Duke-Stir.

Horn’s visit with Cunningham was part of a ten day lobbying trip that Horn and his chief of staff, Joan Wonsley, took in August of 2003.  A lobbying trip that took them to Washington when Congress was in recess and most legislators were out of town.

Republican Horn, who was first elected to the County Board of Supervisors in 1995, faces a tough primary fight against fellow Republican, Bruce Thompson.

Having a beer with Cunningham on the Duke-Stir wouldn’t have been such a big issue was it not for other allegations that have been swirling around Horn in recent weeks.  Allegations of both financial and personal misconduct that directly involve Horn and Wonsley.

In mid-March, during a public question and answer session of a county supervisor’s meeting, Horn was asked to explain the fact that Wonsley lives in a million dollar home owned by Horn. Included in that question was an allegation that Horn lives or has lived at various times with Wonsley in the home.

Horn and the house deal first came under fire three weeks ago, when retired Salk Institute biology professor Ian Trowbridge asked Horn at a board meeting why Wonsley was living in his million-dollar home, and where Horn himself lived.

Horn responded that Wonsley and he had entered a “lease-option” agreement on the six-bedroom, 5 1/2 bath Carlsbad home. Horn has since clarified that the deal was an “equity-share” agreement that protects him from paying taxes on the $349,000 until the house is sold again, and makes Wonsley co-owner.

Horn also told Trowbridge that he lived at his Valley Center ranch with his wife, Kathleen.

However, it later came to light that in addition to Horn’s failure to report the $349,000 on his financial disclosure forms, Wonsley had also given false addresses on campaign finance forms —- hiding the fact that she lived in the Carlsbad home.

The financial aspects of the Horn/Wonsley arrangement forced Horn to revise his 2004 and 2005 financial disclosure forms.  The personal aspects of the arrangement forced Horn to defend his relationship with Wonsley and opened up further questions as to why Wonsley was so willing to put $349,000 of her own money into a home owned by Horn.

Critics immediately suggested that the pair purposely tried to hide the deal, possibly to conceal their relationship, or to hide the $349,000 that Wonsley gave Horn to protect it from a civil lawsuit filed against Wonsley’s daughter, Brooke.

Brooke Wonsley was arrested in 2003 on charges she stabbed her boyfriend in an argument at Joan Wonsley’s condominium. The charge was initially a felony, but was reduced to a misdemeanor. The ex-boyfriend filed a civil suit against Brooke Wonsley in 2005.

Disclosure of the Horn/Wonsley financial arrangements was bad enough for Horn.  The revelations of the complex nature of their personal relationship, which had been a subject of speculation in the county for a long time, gives Horn’s critics more ammunition.

This most recent disclosure that Horn and Wonsley took an extended lobbying trip together that included time on the Duke-Stir with Cunningham just adds more fuel to the fire and keeps the story alive.

(Meant to front page this. Busby has a chance to win this thing on Tuesday. She needs everyone’s help. – promoted by Words Have Power)

The latest Datamar poll of the 50th Congressional District race was released today. Democrat Francine Busby remains the most popular candidate with 39% of likely voters saying that they will vote for her. 39% is far from the 50% + 1 that is required to win the seat outright, but Busby may be in striking distance of that number.

The Datamar poll is a fully automated telephone poll that targets the households of prior voters. It is easy to hang up on the poll and, believe it or not, Datamar called my house twice during the week, both times at the dinner hour, and polled whoever answered the phone. Not the best practice. The other problem with the Datamar approach is that it doesn’t address absentee and early voters. I suspect that members of both of these groups would simply hang up on Datamar’s electronic voice and get on with their lives.

Anyway, with that said, there is a serious race among the Republican to get the opportunity to face Busby in June, assuming that lightning doesn’t strike her campaign. On the Republican side, carpetbagger millionaire Eric Roach (16.5%) has a slender 1.1% margin over carpetbagger lobbyist Brian Bilbray (15.4%). Howard “Wrong Way” Kaloogian has slipped back from the lead group with 9.5% of the potential vote. Kaloogian’s woes with photos and endorsements certainly appear to have trimmed his numbers.

Two other Republican contenders, millionaire Alan Uke (4.3%) and state senator Bill Morrow (6.8%) have picked up some support, but still remain well behind the Republican leaders Roach and Bilbray.

Datamar’s results are considerable less favorable for Busby than last week’s SurveyUSA poll that pulsed her support at 45%. As I noted above, the Datamar approach doesn’t leave me with a high level of confidence. The fact, that my home was polled twice doesn’t give me a warm feeling regarding the level of control Datamar has in place to avoid double counting.

Rumor has it that the number of absentee ballots is far larger than expected and that those ballots appear to be heavily skewed towards Busby. If that is true, then a strong GOTV effort over the next three days might push her over the top and result in an outright win.

The gloves are off as Republican candidates in the race for convicted Republican felon Randy “Duke” Cunningham’s seat in congress attempt to climb over each other in their race to finish second to Democrat Francine Busby.

Polls suggest that the Republican side of the race is to close to call. The Three Stooges: Howard Kaloogian, Vincent Eric Roach and Brian Bilbray are locked in mortal combat. Alan Uke, another millionaire Republican, has started to make inroads into the front runner’s numbers.

Thanks to his $2.4 million in self-funding, Roach has purchased a position as the Republican front runner. So, it comes as no surprise that Bilbray and Uke are taking aim at Roach with a late campaign advertising blitz.

Bilbray’s campaign has a new mailer out that expands on the plot line raised earlier in the week that Roach has seldom bothered to vote or even register. Roach’s voting failures are spelled out in terms of issues near and dear to the hearts of California Republicans (Defense of Marriage – Prop 22, English in Schools – Prop 227, Death Penalty – Prop 18). More curious is Bilbray’s charge that Roach is a carpetbagger, who mysteriously appeared in San Diego from, the Devil’s playground, San Francisco. That’s quite an accusation coming from a guy who never lived in the district, whose California voting residence is his mother’s house and whose family residence is in Virginia.

Uke doubles up on Roach, attacking him in a commercial for off-shoring American jobs and shipping “billions of dollars to foreigners.”

Roach’s millions aren’t going to protect him from this last minute blitz of negative campaigning. He has spent his way to the top of the heap, but it is going hard to sustain that position as his opponents pound away. The going only gets tougher for Roach on Tuesday as he will be forced to run a get out the vote effort with hired “volunteers.”

Double hat tip to San Diego Politics – Home of the Dirt.