Who is Joe Nation?Randy Shawbyline‚ Apr. 14‚ 2008Since entering the State Senate race against Mark Leno and Carole Migden, former Marin Assemblymember Joe Nation has benefited from positive San Francisco Chronicle stories that largely ignored his political record. But as voters start paying attention to the race, they will learn that when progressive Marin Congressmember Lynn Woolsey was rallying national opposition to the Iraq War, Nation forced her to divert attention from this work by mounting a primary election challenge against her in 2006. Voters will also find out that Nation was a major recipient of campaign donations from the healthcare, pharmaceutical and insurance industries while in the Assembly. Nation voted against single payer health care and did not support former State Senator Jackie Speier’s landmark consumer and financial privacy bill. One might be hard-pressed to find such information about Nation in the Chronicle, since Nation was formerly a regular contributor to its editorial pages and the paper endorsed him over the staunchly progressive and anti-war Woolsey in 2006. |