Fast Food and Politics

Super PAC icPurple, set up by Gateway computer megamillionaire Ted Waitt of La Jolla to back the failed independent mayoral campaign of ex-GOP state assemblyman Nathan Fletcher, is still in business. According to the committee’s financial disclosure for July, filed earlier this month with the Federal Election Commission, Waitt’s group took in $18,649. The biggest contribution, $10,000, on July 19, came from Paradigm Investment Group, LLC, a big Hardee’s franchisee that owns fast-food joints throughout the Deep South but is based in tony La Jolla, where Rancho Santa Fe’s Dan Shea is a partner in the company. Shea, the Donovan’s steak house proprietor and leader of the effort to build a new, taxpayer-subsidized Chargers stadium, endorsed Fletcher in June’s primary race, which was won by Republican city councilman Carl DeMaio and Democratic congressman Bob Filner. IcPurple is currently backing the 28th District assembly bid of Chad Walsh and the Maine U.S. Senate campaign of ex-governor Angus King.