Experts Expound

Experts Expound

"Another feud in California politics: This week Jerry Brown seemed to provoke Gavin Newsom by considering the hire of Alex Tourk (Newsom's former aide who resigned after it was disclosed that Tourk's wife had an affair with Newsom). What is the nastiest political feud you can remember?

The Doris Allen speakership. Doris against the world. But then again she walked right into that!

Gee, there seem to be so many. Berman-McCarthy, Willie Brown and the Gang of Five, Bill Thomas and just about every other Republican in Bakersfield, Parra-Florez, Art Torres and Alex Garcia, Angelides-Roberti, Pat Brown and Jesse Unruh. And there are legendary feuds among Latino factions in LA politics, but I've misplaced my scorecard so don't remember the details.

Gray Davis vs. Dianne Feinstein in the ‘92 Democratic U.S. Senate primary. Equating DiFi to convicted tax cheat, imperious hotelier Leona Helmsley, nearly cost him his career — and ultimately helped her win the Senate seat.

Does Rose Bird count as a feud?

If you go back about 20 years, there were two Republican Assemblywomen from the L.A. suburbs, Cathie Wright and Marian La Follette. They really hated each other's guts. Ed Davis was in the middle of it too. When he retired from the Senate he recruited La Follette to run against Wright for his seat because he openly despised Wright, whom he called the "Peroxide Princess."

Political feud? Somehow in this context I can only hear those famous words of Rodney King ….. "Why can't we all just get along?"

Willie Brown vs the Gang of Five. ‘Moderate' Assembly Dems take on Speaker Brown. It dragged on for years and Brown prevailed until term limits, then became SF mayor and ‘author'. But where are those five Dems today? Uh huh. Mostly caught with their pants down – something Brown brags about.

The people from whom we sought opinions: Andrew Acosta, A.G. Block, Mark Bogetich, Barry Brokaw, Morgan Crinklaw, J. Dale Debber, Peter DeMarco, Jim Evans, Kathy Fairbanks, Jeff Fuller, Rex Frazier, Ken Gibson, Evan Goldberg, Deborah Gonzalez, Sandy Harrison, Bob Hertzberg, Jason Kinney, Mike Madrid, Nicole Mahrt, Steve Maviglio, Adam Mendelsohn, Barbara O'Connor, Bill Packer, Kassy Perry, Jack Pitney, Adam Probolsky, Tony Quinn, Matt Rexroad, Matt Ross, Roger Salazar, Dan Schnur, Will Shuck, Ralph Simoni, Sam Sorich, Ray Sotero, Gary South, Kevin Spillane, Rich Zeiger. 

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