By Doug Porter
Two studies released this week appear to validate the decision made by big money Republican donors to boost the candidacy of City Councilman Kevin Faulconer.
A poll by Republican leaning Competitive Edge Research & Communication of 504 likely voters (Sept. 26-29) shows Faulconer running essentially even with Nathan Fletcher (26-27%, with a plus or minus margin of error of 4.4 percent). Candidate David Alvarez was favored by 13%, Mike Aguirre got 7%, 20% of those polled said they were undecided and while 8% backed one of the seven other candidates in the race.
Following “push” polling questions, wherein surveyors read politically leading statements to respondents, support for Faulconer jumped to 34%, with Alvarez moving into second place with 22% and Fletcher support dropping to 20%.
Probable voter turnout in the Competitive Edge survey was pegged at somewhere between 35 and 40%.
A National University System Institute for Policy Research survey predicts a voter turnout of at about 46% for the special election, with 65% voting by mail-in ballot.
Low voter turnouts in special and primary elections have historically favored Republican candidates and conservative issues.
A UT-San Diego report on the National University study says:
The “Filner voter coalition” will not be a driving force in November, according to the report. Latinos and young voters, who strongly supported Filner last November, are unlikely to participate in high numbers this year. However, LGBT voter precincts will generate high turnout rates.
Backers of Democrat David Alvarez’s campaign appear to be aware of his name recognition issues. Bolstered by a $620,000 war chest raised through an independent committee, his backers now lead in total financial resources, having amassed more money than Fletcher and Faulconer combined. (h/tinewsource)
The District 4 City Councilman picked up the endorsement of the Progressive San Diego organization yesterday, announcing he would appoint a director of sustainability if elected.
City Councilman Kevin Faulconer stood up before the press yesterday and claimed the Barrio Logan plan recently adopted by the City Council threatens the jobs of 46,000 maritime workers in the Port of San Diego. Candidate Faulconer didn’t explicitly endorse the ballot initiative being proposed by the maritime industry sponsors of the press conference, saying he agreed with 90% of the plan and urging negotiations.
As Voice of San Diego reported yesterday, claims being made by Faulconer and sponsors of the initiative don’t hold up to scrutiny. The actual number of workers in the entire Port of San Diego is less than a third of the figure cited by the candidate. At the heart of the disagreement is a nine block area not even under the aegis of the Port District.
All the industrial area south of Harbor Drive – home to three shipbuilding companies – will remain untouched in the plan.
The real disagreement is over a small area just north of Harbor Drive that is currently home to a number of companies that support the shipbuilders, like vendors and cleaners.
City planners want to turn those blocks into an area for commercial properties so they can serve as a buffer between the shipyard and the residential community to the north.
National Day for Dignity and Respect March in San Diego
Busses from all over the county of San Diego will be bringing immigration reform advocates to 6th and Laurel Street on Saturday morning (10am) for a march through downtown ending up at the County Administration building.
Undeterred by the government shutdown, plans for immigration reform marches are continuing as scheduled in over 100 cities throughout the country on October 5th.
Advocates are demanding Congress vote on an immigration reform package that includes a pathway to citizenship, protection for workers’ rights, promoting family unity and halting the militarization of border communities.
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the New Democrat Coalition were key players in crafting an immigration measure introduced in the House of Representatives on Wednesday They’re hoping to pressure Republicans to act on comprehensive reform legislation similar to one passed by the Senate back in June.
Sadly, most GOPers in the House are saying the bill is dead on arrival.
For more information on Saturday march, go here.
Cry Me a River, UT-San Diego
Daily Fishwrap publisher Doug Manchester’s minions dutifully trotted out an editorial today suggesting the Evil Obama administration directly intervened to shut down this weekend’s Mirarmar Air Show.
This looks like one more obnoxious example of the Obama administration using spending fights as a pretext for inflicting maximum discomfort on ordinary Americans in the hope that it will prompt them to demand en masse that congressional Republicans do the president’s bidding. The East Coast version of this pathetic gamesmanship was the decision to put barricades around the National World War II Memorial inWashington, D.C. Visiting World War II veterans wouldn’t stand for this childish budget theater and tore down the barricades on Monday.
Nobody should like this petulance from the president. If budget deadlocks force federal spending to be limited, then it should be done thoughtfully and prudently. But as we saw with the White House’s attempt to cause chaos at airports this spring by furloughing air traffic controllers, the commander-in-chief doesn’t agree. Why else would his administration cancel a popular, moneymaking air show that is a San Diego institution?
Perhaps Manchester can take a few moments out from his busy social schedule to organize an official pity party.
Never mind that mothers around the country are worried about feeding their children as the WIC program shutters. Or that agencies dealing with domestic violence are closing down today. Or that children with cancer are unable to receive treatments.
But Noooo…what’s important to Manchester and his ilk are air shows and publicity stunts at memorials staged by Tea Baggers.
Just Say No to Government ala Carte, Congressman Peters
The conundrum for Congressional Democrats fearing Tea Party activism in their districts is apparent when looking at their defections supporting GOP efforts to pick and choose programs they want to keep funding and those they don’t. I can almost understand why certain Democrats don’t want to be accused of “hating our veterans” or “voting against our national parks” next year.
But there are larger issues at stake here, not the least of which is having the cojones to show a willingness to put principles first.
So far this week the House GOP has decided to fund parks, museums, memorials, the NIH, reservists and veterans’ benefits. They know full well that piecemeal funding efforts have no chance in the Democratic Senate, which has done a remarkable job of holding steady in favor of a continuing funding resolution unencumbered by attempts to undermine the Affordable Care Act.
Unfortunately San Diego’s Representative Scott Peters is among those who’ve been 100% supportive of the ala carte approach to governance. (even though the GOP actually wants to cut all of those programs quite deeply).
As I mentioned earlier in the week, Peters has also been in league with lawmakers seeking to repeal the Medical Device Tax portion of the Affordable Care Act. He’d be well advised to read and consider the arguments put forward in Josh Eidelson’s Salon.com interview with economist Paul N. Van de Water of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, author of a new report defending the device tax.
Aside from the fact many of the claims made by the medical device industry and Republicans simply are not true (the usual “Don’t have an argument? – Make something up.” approach to discussing healthcare reform), the temporary appropriations bill Peters voted for tied the repeal of the device tax with a delay in health reform as its means of offsetting the cost.
Sorry, Congressman Peters, I don’t think you want to be campaigning next year on the platform of “I voted to delay affordable healthcare”. Or are you really that afraid of Carl DeMaio?
Here’s the money quote from Van de Water in the Salon interview:
With the Republicans still dead-set on trying to defund, delay, or derail the entire legislation, any suggestion that there’s a part of the law that could be improved is just going to be pounced upon by the law’s opponents, and that doesn’t facilitate a reasoned discussion. I hope that somewhere down the road – after the legislation is well-established – at that point if we see that there are things that aren’t working well, that there will be the opportunity to make the necessary changes. But I think this is not the environment in which sensible changes can be discussed at this point.
Saying No to the GOP’s Game of Calvinball
For those of you who might not remember, Calvinball was an imaginary game central to the plot line of Bill Watterson’s decade-long comic strip Calvin and Hobbes.
From Wikipedia:
The only consistent rule states that Calvinball may never be played with the same rules twice. Scoring is also arbitrary, with Hobbes at times reporting scores of “Q to 12” and “oogy to boogy”
Having set the scene, let’s proceed to Ezra Klein’s Washington Post account, describing the view on the budget battle from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue:
The White House has decided that they can’t govern effectively if the House Republicans can keep playing Calvinball. The rules and promises Boehner makes are not their problem, they’ve decided. They’re not going to save him. And that also rules out unusual solutions like minting a platinum coin or declaring the debt limit unconstitutional. The White House doesn’t want to break the law (and possibly spark a financial crisis) in order to save Boehner from breaking a promise he never should have made.
Top administration officials say that President Obama feels as strongly about this fight as he has about anything in his presidency. He believes that he will be handing his successor a fatally weakened office, and handing the American people an unacceptable risk of future financial crises, if he breaks, or even bends, in the face of Republican demands. And so the White House says that their position is simple, and it will not change: They will not negotiate over substantive policy issues until Republicans end the shutdown and raise the debt ceiling.
Next They Came for Our Social Security Checks…
The fun’s just starting for the Congressional Teabaggers. If they can hold off any sane congressional votes for another couple of weeks, they can make it a trifecta; defunding Obamacare, Social Security AND Medicare.
From Huffington Post:
President Barack Obama said Thursday that while it’s bad members of Congress have allowed a government shutdown, it would be worse if they failed to increase the government’s borrowing authority later this month.
First and foremost, he said, retirement and disability benefits for millions of Americans would be at risk.
“In a government shutdown, Social Security checks still go out on time,” Obama said. “In an economic shutdown, if we don’t raise the debt ceiling, they don’t go out on time.”
More than 57 million Americans receive monthly benefits from the Social Security Administration. The average monthly check for retirees totaled $1,224 in September.
The president’s remarks followed a Treasury Department report detailing catastrophic consequences for Congress failing to allow the government to continue borrowing money to cover expenses. Not raising the so-called “debt ceiling” by Oct. 17 could trigger “a financial crisis and recession that could echo the events of 2008 or worse,” the report said.
Congressman Issa’s Boorish Behaivor
Tweet from NY Times reporter covering the lockdown of the Capitol Hill yesterday following reports of a shooter:
Rep. Darrell Issa just barked at Capitol Police, “Let me by. I’m going though” as he blows past barricade.
— Jeremy W. Peters (@jwpetersNYT) October 3, 2013
On This Day: 1957 – The Soviet Union launched Sputnik I into orbit around the Earth. Sputnik was the first manmade satellite to enter space. 1970 – Janis Joplin was found dead of a heroin overdose at the age of 27. She had just finished recording her second solo album “Pearl.” 2004 – SpaceShipOne reached an altitude of 368,000 feet. It was the first privately built, manned rocket ship to fly in space twice within a two week window. The ship won the Ansari X Prize of $10 million dollars for their success.
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Doug Porter
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Shutting down the airshow is “maximum discomfort”?? Where do the Manchesterians get this stuff? Shutting down Head Start would perhaps qualify, causing problems for WIC is another, understaffing emergency responders is one more, as is understaffing food and safety inspectors. But shutting down the airshow is about a discomforting as cancelling a TV show.
The irony being that a good chunk of military families who attend the air show have kids enrolled in the Head Start program. Go figure.
Republicans today seem to have discovered their inner punk. Like a lot of punks who had relatively rich parents, could afford black leather and studio hair and good booze and never had to explain themselves to anybody, Republicans are really into self-definition and not so much into introspection. They can block funding the government and then discover the vets get mad when their memorials are barricaded. Punks do things like celebrate veterans and they vote for war; punks don’t go to war.
They’re punks.
Think of Issa blasting past a barricade that he voted to put up.
The laws, they think, don’t apply to them, and they’re right. Issa and his Tea Party punks are still going to be paid after he’s furloughed people who really work.
Punk’s contribution to American life was scorn. The GOP bought the message.