The Sick Exploitation of a Dead SLO County Supervisor

For the November 8, 2022 General Election, I decided to focus on the elections happening in my community. Everyone and their mother had something to say about the San Luis Obispo County races. My mailbox was deluged with countless glossy mailers featuring the candidates.

What was conspicuously absent from my influx of mail was all the bizarre negative campaign mailers focused on the District 2 race. Until recently when the district maps were successfully gerrymandered to benefit Republicans — with a legal case pending to potentially overturn it — District 2 included my hometown of Morro Bay. I didn’t get any of those mailers, but I read about them in The Tribune.

SLO County District Attorney Dan Dow donated $25,000 from his Dan Dow for District Attorney 2022 campaign account to Back the Badge, a politically right-leaning political action committee that haphazardly labeled Gibson “pro-crime” without evidence to back that claim up. Back the Badge was previously involved in the District 4 race, taking aim at now Supervisor-Elect Jimmy Paulding for allegedly voting to raise taxes during his tenure on the Arroyo Grande City Council, a claim that also lacked any evidentiary foundation.

But that’s what political action committees do. They inject hyperbole and partisanship into races that should be nonpartisan, but they’re unfortunately not. Because of the current tenor of political discourse nationally, we always have to expect and prepare for misinformation and…