By E.A. Barrera
I was proud to support David Alvarez and his campaign for Mayor. His life is an inspiration and his future is the future of San Diego. But now it is time for all San Diego Democrats to come together, and grow beyond our basic base of supporters. There are floods of Independents and Republicans out there disgusted with the modern Tea Party-dominated GOP. The new Confederacy has taken hold of the Republican Party, leaving millions of Americans ready to join with the Democrats in reasonable dialogue and solutions to our nation’s problems.
But in the next few months, San Diego Democrats must start to consider how the negative campaign against Nathan Fletcher by Alvarez supporters – both officially, unofficially, and by rumor, innuendo, and deception – created a bitterness that caused many Fletcher Democrats (much less Independents who did not want to vote for Faulconer) to either sit at home or vote for Faulconer in protest. I became an enthusiastic Alvarez backer, but it was very disheartening during the primary to be called a “DINO” (Democrat In Name Only) or worse because I thought Fletcher the better candidate to keep the Mayor’s office in Democratic Party control.
Now we are hearing a theme from backers of Alvarez as to why he lost: Racism and/or the notion Democrats can’t win Special Elections. It is true that racism and bigotry are spreading within the ranks of Conservatism. Simply listen to or read the comments of listeners on Roger Hedgecock’s radio program, “FOX News”, Rush Limbaugh or the “Duck-Dynasty show” and you can see and smell the racist, bigoted bile of so many who cling to the Confederate values defeated by Abraham Lincoln, Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King, Harvey Milk and Barack Obama. Racism against Alvarez absolutely occurred … but no more so than against President Obama, who managed to win a far larger percentage of San Diego votes in 2012 than Faulconer did in 2014. In fact it is this same bigotry in all its forms–against blacks, Latinos, Asians, gays, women and the poor–which is driving so many Republicans from the GOP … Republicans like Nathan Fletcher.
The latter argument is perhaps the most disturbing – the one that says there was never any chance for Alvarez or any Democrat to win, because Republicans vote more often in special elections. Excuses have streamed across social media and online publications, ranging from the absurd notion that the race was lost the moment Bob Filner resigned, to voters were hoodwinked into voting for Faulconer, to the apparent idea that Democrats simply don’t care to vote when an election is not about the Presidency. This is a defeatist attitude for numerous reasons, least of all the ability it has to mask what was a clear distinction of this campaign: Democrats lost sight of the bigger picture.
The San Diego Democratic Party had the unique and maybe once in a lifetime chance to broaden the Democratic base and kill the GOP-development cabal of Doug Manchester and his lackeys. If Faulconer had not won, the Republican Party would not have had a single major elected official in California. Further, there would not be a single Republican Mayor of any of the ten most populous cities in the United States. But the way the Labor Council threw Nathan Fletcher under the bus in the name of party purity was terrible. They didn’t just endorse Alvarez, they skewered Fletcher – basically implying that he was some sort of spy for the right and if you did not vote for Alvarez, you were violating the principles of Liberalism and the Democratic tradition. Essentially doing the work Faulconer wanted done.
So now Democrats have no leverage or voice in city hall and the establishment powers that have dominated local governance are emboldened. They think they have a mandate. But within this defeat exists rays of hope for the future. Kevin Faulconer proved that Conservatism is dying. He barely, if ever, mentioned his party affiliation and or that he is a staunch conservative on economic issues. David Alvarez proved that Liberalism still has a way to go before being the majority, but his supporters showed that Labor and the Liberal wing of the Democratic Party are determined fighters who will never quit, while Nathan Fletcher proved that there are millions of voters in between the two ideological ends looking for a home and leaning towards the Democrats if only we will welcome them into our party.
Ideological rigidity is not the way of America. Our values are inclusiveness and our principles are based on education, debate and seeking common ground. These are the true values and principles of the Democratic Party – the party of FDR through Barack Obama – and it is the party I am proud to call my own.
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Ho and hum. What would you have this Democratic Party do to unwind the inadequacy of Nathan Fletcher? Nominate him again?
I’m sorry, E.A. Barrera, but you have to work harder to persuade your readers to abandon David Alvarez and the present leadership of the Democratic Party. If David Alvarez was guilty of “ideological rigidity” tell us how he was wrong about the Community Plan for Barrio Logan, or tax dollars devoted to building a Taj Mahal for Dean Spanos and his Chargers. See? You haven’t advanced any positive ideas save for some vague complaint that Nathan Fletcher was mistreated.
Which parts of the “ideological rigidity” would you have the Democrats forego to capture the “center?” Minimum wage? Barrio Logan?
And the notion that Democrats have “no leverage or voice in city hall” with a majority (and for a while a super-majority) is just untrue.
Nathan Fletcher is not some sort of monster. But he did try to jump to the front of the line and that pissed off some people. And I know for a fact the attacks by the Lincoln Club during the primary were just hint of what they had in store if Fletcher had been the candidate.
And yes, there are ideological differences within the Dems. Fletcher evoked (in my mind) the part of the party that’s given in to cuts in social services even as corporate welfare has increased. I knew Alvarez would not make those kinds of deals.
Furthermore, I can find little or any actual evidence that fighting for the “center” is a good strategy–not pissing off your own people is. When Democrats turn out to vote, we win.
Finally, while I respect your right to hold your opinions, I cannot see any advantage other than “revenge” by arguing this out in public.
The “fighting for the center” strategy seemed to work pretty well for Scott Peters. You have to remember that there are more registered independent voters than Republicans in the City of San Diego. Failing to appeal to them in any way is tantamount signing an electoral death warrant. It appears that this is what happened in this race (see comment below, too).
Doug Porter is absolutely right. This article by Ernesto is not a serious attempt to discuss political strategy. Rather, he is engaged in an attempt at “trolling” progressives and the labor movement, trying to stoke a public fight within the Democratic Party. To engage it as a serious argument gives it more credit than it deserves, and more credit than he has given progressives and the labor movement in San Diego.
Why do I say this? First of all, many of the claims in this article (which he previously made on Facebook over the course of the last week) are demonstrably false, yet he continues to peddle these falsehoods. For example:
• “It was very disheartening during the primary to be called a ‘DINO’ (Democrat In Name Only) or worse because I thought Fletcher the better candidate to keep the Mayor’s office in Democratic Party control.” When Ernesto made this claim on Facebook last week, he was challenged to produce one example of him or any other Fletcher supporter being called a DINO for supporting Fletcher. He would (and most likely could) not. It is true that Fletcher’s bona fides as a Democrat were repeatedly questioned, but that is a world away from calling his supporters DINOs. It never happened, and the perpetuation of the lie that it did can only be intended to foment divisions.
• “The Labor Council threw Nathan Fletcher under the bus in the name of party purity was terrible. They didn’t just endorse Alvarez, they skewered Fletcher – basically implying that he was some sort of spy for the right.” Again, when Ernesto made this same claim last week on Facebook, he was challenged to produce one example where either the Labor Council or the Alvarez campaign implied that Fletcher was a spy. And again, he would not because he could not. Fletcher was criticized by both for his horrible voting record, and for not having demonstrated a commitment to the Democratic Party and its values, but he was never accused of being a spy. To continue to claim that he was seems designed to make mischief.
The second reason for suggesting that Ernesto’s argument should not be taken seriously is how he has reacted to political criticisms of this analysis when it was first posted on Facebook. Rather than address the substance of the disagreements, Ernesto’s response was to resort to anti-union slanders. For example, he referred to the leadership of the Labor Council as “Maoists” and “leftist ‘Chavistas’” (I’m pretty sure he was referring to Hugo, not Cesar), and as labor “bosses” who had “hoodwinked” their naïve membership (I have screenshots, in case anyone is interested). And then, when he was called out on his use of anti-union tropes and invited to rethink his rhetoric, his response was to block people and delete their comments, rather than take a step back and reconsider.
People who are willing to lie to make a political point, and who resort to red-baiting slanders when challenged, are not making a serious argument, and we should not pretend that they are.
Beautiful take-down. The truth can make us free of Ernesto Barrera.
I have no idea what Ricardo Ochoa is talking about with re: to some FaceBook history. But reading E.A. Barrera’s post above, I think it’s spot-on. Though I don’t expect much from the ‘you’re either with us or you’re against’ mentality found on this forum. Are the Big Tent days gone?
“We just need to turn out and we’ll win” is the same thing the good-ole boy D consultants and good-ole boy Union bosses have been saying, well, forever. If we (Ds) can’t even manage to do that when we have MORE $$$ in the war chest than the Rs, then how can we possibly expect to win when we don’t?
It used to be that you could count on 40% to ALWAYS vote D and 40% to ALWAYS vote R, no matter what schmuck of a candidate was on the ticket. And the real secret sauce was the 20% of persuadables . Well, I would reckon that faction is much closer to 10% nowadays (thanks in part to the constant drum beat/chest thumping from the likes of Fox and MSNBC).
I have yet to ever vote for a R (I worked for the Nat’l Party and was in Tallahassee in 2000). I voted for Fletcher in the primary and my wife voted for Aguirre. At the end of the day, both of our choices were based on how poorly Alvarez performed in the primary debates. Not because either of us loved Fletcher or Aguirre nor because we hated Alvarez. I’m sorry to say it, but of the 4 candidates (including Falconer) Alvarez came across as the least smart – – by far.
That said, neither my wife nor I were “pissed off” and both of us were ready to support Alvarez. But what did he (or rather, his campaign team) do to earn our support? Simply repeating a focus groups approved buzzword “Neighborhoods” wasn’t enough. Clearly, neither of us are DINO’s but if you take for granted folks in your own party, can you really be expected to earn the vote of anyone who is not in that ‘I ALWAYS vote D” bloc?
And therein lay the issue that E.A. highlights. “We just need to turnout” is not a winning strategy because it assumes that ALL registered Ds are in that “I ALWAYS vote D” bloc. That’s just not reality. It’s like saying all minorities are Ds and all millionaires are Rs.
But here’s another strategy that doesn’t win: “Screw the middle.” Nathan Fletcher is not the issue here; Nathan Fletcher is just another failed primary candidate. The issue is that “broaden the base” (as titled above) should not be considered a bad thing.
hOBie,
The point is not FB history — it is that the above screed contains blatantly untrue statements. It would be a different story if Ernesto (or you) could cite one example of the Alvarez campaign or the Labor Council calling Fletcher supporter DINOs, or implying that Fletcher was a spy.
That, and that many of us consider it completely inappropriate for Democrats (especially ones who worked for the DNC) to refer to democratically-elected representatives of working people as “union bosses” (as you did above), never mind red-baiting them as Ernesto did last week. If you want to echo the rhetoric of Faulconer and the Lincoln Club, you have every right to. But let’s at least be clear what type of politics that rhetoric serves.
As with any losing campaign (this one, the UAW election in Chattanooga), there is always room to analyze what could have been done better. But when people start slurring others in the conversation (be it by calling them “Maoists”, “union bosses”, “leftist ‘Chavistas'”), I stop thinking it’s a conversation among friends and allies.
Actually, Alvarez had a pretty strong neighborhoods plan, whereas Faulconer had “we’ll put more police on the streets” as his neighborhoods agenda.
Alvarez’ neighborhood development strategy centered in large part around CDBG’s–the federal funding that was skewered by the Faulconer camp for playing favorites instead of spreading the money around evenly. Fact is that CDBG money can ONLY be used in specific, underserved and poor neighborhoods. He would aggressively go after that HUD an CDBG money, when it’s highly doubtful that Faulconer will.
The second phase is to leverage those funds to push private development into those areas.
His criticism of Faulconer that “he doesn’t have a neighborhoods plan” is, in my view, entirely accurate. Absolutely nothing will change in those areas, despite promises by Faulconer to the contrary.
But, the overall point is correct: Alvarez did not do nearly enough–or what he did do was entirely ineffective–to reach out to middle-of-the-road voters. This whole ideological purity mentality is going to lose Dems a lot more elections. It works for the Tea Party because their base is primarily low information, evangelical voters who don’t care if you lie to them.
It won’t work for the Democrats, because Dem voters tend to be a lot more informed and don’t appreciate being lied to. But they do want to know that they matter, and either Alvarez didn’t do nearly enough outreach or his message didn’t resonate at all. Whatever it was, it’s a serious problem that must be solved before November.
Why screw up a well-reasoned explanation on the nature of Community Development Block Grants and other issues during the mayoral race with this same damn invocation of “ideological purity/rigidity?” That’s just playground calling out.
Ernie-
To say that Democrats have “no leverage at City Hall” is entirely inaccurate. They still have a majority on the City Council, and will likely have a 6-3 veto proof majority at least until November once an interim replacement for Faulconer’s District 2 seat is named.
The Democrats also have a VERY strong candidate in Sarah Boot running against Lorie Zapf, who was redistricted out of her current District 6 seat. She’s got a bit of an uphill battle, since Zapf will have the advantage of unabashed support from Faulconer, but she could make that 6-3 majority permanent for the remainder of Faulconer’s term.
To sum up the author’s post— if the Labor Council had supported Nathan Fletcher, instead of “throwing him under the bus,” Republicans and Independents would have joined together with Democrats, (increasing the base!) & the lion would have lain down with the lamb in a bipartisan manner inside of the Democratic Big Tent. Citizens would have been spared the unpleasantness of Bob Filner and David Alvarez’ failed mayoral campaign.
This article is neither a serious critique of the election nor helpful in charting a future course. As Jim Hightower says, “There’s nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos.”
E.A., it looks like you’re taking some heat by some of the comments, but seriously — THANK YOU — for taking the time to write this out!
Lately, it feels like I’m the only one thinking this, and quite frankly, I’m happy to know that a lot of what you wrote needs to be said.
As a former Republican — disgusted by the Tea Party-extremism of today’s Republican Party — I found myself joining the Democratic Party, inspired by leaders like Nathan Fletcher, Lorena Gonzalez, and Scott Peters.
It was all rosy and welcoming as soon as I marked ‘Democrat’ next to my name on the voter registration card. However, as soon as this whole Fletcher vs. Alvarez issue came up, all the labels came out: DINO, shill, racist, etc. — it was like being back in the Republican Party, only ideologically different. I remember someone specifically telling me to “let the ‘real’ Democrats handle this one.”
Already went through the BS of purity tests in the GOP, and I was disappointed to see that same attitude here in the Democratic Party.
And, I’m not dumping on David Alvarez as a person, or a candidate. I like David. He’s as inspiring as the other local leaders I mentioned. However, the Alvarez campaign — as a whole, as a political machine — was absolutely no where to be seen after November 19th as far as outreach to former Nathan Fletcher supporters.
The point you raised were right about why the campaign lost. The powers that be in the Alvarez campaign felt they could win it on their own, and on their own terms, with no clue as to where the rest of the electorate was.
Could Nathan have won over Faulconer? It’s a mystery. The Lincoln Club folks did some wonderful tricks on that campaign of personal destruction — who now have the keys tot he Mayor’s office. It’s just disheartening, and disenfranchising, when that same Tea Party-attack playbook is used by folks in the Democratic Party for similar reasoning.
Either way, thank you E.A.! Thank you.
Thank you, Ernie –
You’re nothing if not sincere, and I’ve seen that in you over the last year. You adeptly articulate your thoughts and ideals, and I appreciate it.
I was willing to support Fletcher until Alvarez announced. A successful Fletcher candidacy would not have been my progressive idealistic choice (how can someone so new to embodying progressive ideals be our ‘champion?’), but he would have represented a different ideal. I can relate to his moving away in a disgusted sense of betrayal from the Republican party. I think Nathan is a kind, good man, who has had political aspirations not solely based in vanity, but grounded in public service ideals. In many ways and on many issues, he would have been a respectable and effective mayor.
However, as we saw just prior to the Filner scandal(s), he would have faced constant, progress-slowing challenges if elected. The City Attorney, entrenched downtown business interests, U-T ownership and related powers-that-be would have made his failure their number one goal. It would have been all they had left.
Aside from that sad (but true) sabotage, I’m afraid Fletcher would have sacrificed a few too many progressive ideals in the name of compromise. We’ve seen how capitulation has gotten President Obama nowhere in the court of public opinion, but I think Fletcher would still have been drawn to an “idealistic” middle ground with similar poor reception. I do not think that would have helped our local Democratic party in the long nor short term.
So, YES. It would have been preferable to win. There was much damage to withstand in the last year, and it’s appropriate to reflect and improve upon all of it. However, sharing of our ideals in open discussion, then choosing to come together in a shared sense of purpose is imperative. We failed to pull together after the primary for some of the reasons you mentioned, but also following significant collective trauma. We can do better. We can weave a multi-dimensional movement together.
San Diego is nowhere close to “ideological rigidity” on the left. Far too long we’ve bargained away our values before really seeing where they can carry us. That the Alvarez candidacy stuck to the Councilmember’s ideals (notwithstanding his ability as Councilmember to strike important bipartisan compromises) was incredibly uniting and empowering. The time for compromise follows a position of ideological strength – not forced genuflection and weakness.
Keep sharing your sincere thoughts, but don’t give away your power before it’s come to fruition. We don’t win by *that* sort of compromise.