June 5 is three weeks from today. Make a plan to vote. Please make a plan to vote.
Voter registration is open through May 21, and vote by mail ballots can be requested through May 29.
Some polling released by Survey/USA indicates that undecided voters make up a large part (and sometimes a majority) of the likely electorate. It’s time to do your homework if you haven’t already, and San Diego Free Press has plenty of resources to help you.
We’ve published a crib sheet with our editorial board’s choices, and there is a treasure trove of archived articles available for those who want to dig deeper.
I voted over the weekend, which means the campaigns that are using money smartly will soon not see me as a target for mailings and phone calls. Which should mean the big pile of glossy dead trees will stop growing.
Let’s take a look at a few of this week’s offerings. I live in North Park, so what I get in the mail won’t match what somebody living in another part of the county will see.
First off, the Democratic Party is spending big bucks to counter the three-way smear-fest aimed at Nathan Fletcher. They’re mailing, they’re emailing, and they’re Facebooking.
The back side of this week’s “Republicans Are Lying (Again)” flyer takes aim at the oft-repeated claims about Fletcher being a toadie for the National Rifle Association, listing his aye votes on seven laws the gun lobby hated. Good. Maybe we can put that straw man argument to rest now.
The all-caps headline “Believe Democrats You Trust” sits atop glowing endorsements from Gavin Newson, Barbara Bry, Kevin de Léon, and Jerry Brown.
The issue of ‘who’s lying?’ will come back to haunt the Democratic Party leadership after the primary. Order your popcorn in time for the party’s mid-June central committee meeting. This month’s meeting was canceled, lest any more of ‘those people’ should try to say something.
Oh, I guess I should mention the letter sent to all Democratic Clubs from the Party Chair threatening to sue those clubs if they passed a resolution critical of her leadership. Order extra-extra popcorn.
The Dumanis campaign and the Lincoln Club, aka Job Creators for a Strong Economy, are now hammering on Fletcher’s attendance record in the Assembly in 2012 when, as I recollect, he was running for Mayor of San Diego and going through an existential crisis over his political affiliations.
The Working Families Council, aka Mickey Kasparian’s incredible shrinking alliance, wants you to know the Fletcher personally denied the medical needs of California’s mentally ill, pregnant women, children, and the self-employed.
As far as I know. the Saldaña campaign has no money for mailings and is depending on Kasparian and the Lincoln Club to raise Nathan Fletcher’s negative impressions high enough to beat him in the primary.
The campaign of Omar Passons was also cash poor going into the final stretch. They have been actively promoting their candidate through social media issues postings. The one I found most interesting–and I’ll grant that it’s structured with a focus on published plans or positions to make Omar look best–is the candidate comparison chart.
While Dumanis and Fletcher get the nod for actually having positions –and these nods don’t include campaign speeches– on some issues, Saldaña’s column has nothing to offer. Just “no published plan or position” repeated a dozen times.
I went to her campaign website to check up on this because she’d promised during a 2017 interview there would be positions coming after the first of the year. There was nothing to be seen there.
I need to give credit to the “California Justice and Safety PAC, with major funding from George Soros” in support of Geneviéve Jones-Wright for producing campaign materials of a non-attack nature.
What a concept!
(The San Diego Free Press has endorsed Omar Passons for District 4 County Supervisor)
Thrilled to announce that over 75% of eligible CA voters are now registered to vote, the highest percentage heading into a gubernatorial primary in 64 years! If you know someone who isn’t, there still time. Go to https://t.co/CzX3f8a1RZhttps://t.co/o0G1CxFK8R
— Alex Padilla (@AlexPadilla4CA) May 15, 2018
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