When Bob Filner was elected San Diego’s mayor last November, the 70-year-old progressive Democrat’s supporters hoped he’d be a hands-on mayor who would aggressively take on the city’s traditionally conservative interests and powers that be and bring lots of attention to San Diego. At least part of that came true.
Filner is now being accused of literally being a hands-on (women) mayor, and he certainly brought attention to San Diego, but not exactly the kind his now-grieving supporters had in mind.
So far, 14 prominent and highly respected women — some of them Filner’s political allies — have come forward to offer detailed allegations of alleged sexual harassment by Filner. Filner has been accused of groping and trying to kiss women and getting several in an unwanted and proprietary “Filner headlock.” And the details keep getting worse: Two women say he approached them at a function for women who had been raped in the military. And worse:
Marine veteran Katherine Ragazzino choked up during a Tuesday press conference as she recalled a June meeting with Mayor Bob Filner in his office. Ragazzino and her nurse, Michelle Tyler, alleged that Filner isolated Tyler after the meeting and repeatedly asked her on a date, implying a quid-pro-quo to help Ragazzino. [Voice of San Diego]
Filner often gets lumped in with scandal-stained New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, and New York City comptroller candidate Elliot Spitzer. But Filner arguably faces the worst, most drawn-out, painful political consequences of the bunch.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.