Bill Hocker | Dec 19, 2019

LAProgressive 12/25/19: Mayor Pete’s Favorite Wine-Maker Hasn’t Been A Good Napa Neighbor
HuffPost 12/20/19: Yes, It Is Plainly Wrong To Meet Donors In A Billionaire’s Crystal Wine Cave
NYT 12/20/19: Democrats Sparred Over a Wine Cave Fund-Raiser. Its Billionaire Owner Isn’t Pleased.
Vox 12/19/19: The Warren-Buttigieg wine cave controversy, explained
NVR 12/13/19: Pete Buttigieg to make fundraising stop in the Napa Valley

I've been quite partial to Mayor Pete. With a commanding and quick intellect he has seemed to be a political jujitsu master able to turn any attack back on his attacker with a cogent and convincing repost (as he did with Warren's attack). It is a necessary skill to take on a streetwise thug like Trump on the debate stage.

Unfortunately he has just dulled his allure, no matter how cogent his case for big money donors, by accepting the support of some of the more ostentatious plutocrats on the Napa development scene. The Hall's money and ambitions have pushed every wrong button here for those who have treasured the laid-back rural character of the county now spoiled by the greed, vanity and building projects of a generation of wealthy developers wanting to retire into a life of good-life entrepreneurship.

Without knowing our local politics, Ms. Warren has still managed, in challenging Buttigieg on his fundraising strategy, to voice exactly the resentment that many Napa residents have for a wealthy elite whose own interests, schemes and visions of a more profitable (and populous) future end up being imposed on us all.

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