In a closed-door, Democrat club meeting, Scott Peters demeaned his openly gay opponent and Mia Love, a black Republican.
PETERS: “And now he’s saying, now he’s saying, ‘Well, I’m a gay man, I must be moderate. I’m pro-choice, I’m pro-environment. And I gotta tell ya, around the country, where people don’t know him, they completely buy it. Carl DeMaio has gotten more—it’s so unusual for them to see a gay man running as a Republican. Now, San Diego’s a little different. We’ve been electing LGBT candidates since the ‘90s when Chris Kehoe got elected. Our district attorney is a lesbian Republican. ‘Well who does she have lunch with?’ [Laughter]. And obviously, you know, the Speaker of the Assembly is our own Toni Atkins, who is also… So, we’re pretty used to it, but around the country this thought that there would be any gay elected officials is very novel. He’s gotten stories in The Wall Street Journal, he’s gotten stories in the National Journal, all puff pieces about how this great, new, moderate, gay Republican is coming out and running for office. And they’re very psyched about it. And the Republicans in D.C., they love this. They think, ‘Wow, this guy is gonna change our party’ because all they need—they don’t have any out, gay members of Congress, the Republicans don’t. They also don’t have any African Americans. They’re gonna get one and Mia Love in Utah is just a real right-wing person.”