More Walmart cash arrives for GOP's mayoral campaign

Another big dollop of Walmart money for Republican city councilman Kevin Faulconer and his bid to become San Diego mayor has just arrived in the campaign coffers of the local GOP.

As previously reported, during the fall primary campaign, the Bentonville, Arkansas, retail giant gave $50,000 on October 17 to the state Republican party, which by then had already spent $172,879 on Faulconer's cause.

A day later, on October 18, Walmart kicked in $10,000 to the GOP Lincoln Club, which launched a devastating blitz of hit pieces against Nathan Fletcher — the former Republican assemblyman–turned-Democrat backed by Qualcomm billionaire Irwin Jacobs — who ended up third in the race.

Yesterday the retail giant came through with $10,000 for the San Diego County Republican Party, according to a disclosure filing made with the California secretary of state.

Walmart has long been a major money player in San Diego municipal politics; earlier this year, the company gave $10,000 to the Lincoln Club's unsuccessful campaign to elect Democrat Dwayne Crenshaw to the city council. He lost to fellow Democrat Myrtle Cole.

The company is friendly with Republican kingpin and U-T San Diego owner Doug Manchester, whose paper has editorially favored the expansion of the chain here in the face of resistance from labor unions — backing Democratic city councilman David Alvarez in the run-off for mayor — and some neighborhood planning groups.

In addition to carrying upbeat stories about new Walmart stores, the U-T publisher also sold the company a liquor license for its grocery operation for $65,000.

Manchester was also a heavy financial backer of the Lincoln Club's anti-Fletcher hit piece campaign and joined Walmart in sending contributions to the local GOP's federal campaign committee, which were subsequently routed to the local party's state committee and from there to the city-council campaigns of Republicans Lorie Zapf and Chris Cate.