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In The Battle for the Soul of San Diego David Alvarez Stands for All of Us

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By Jim Miller

San Diego is on the national stage again.

As the final week of the dead heat mayoral showdown unfolded, Politico reported on “the battle for San Diego,” the Sacramento Bee’s Dan Walters pondered whether the race would be a harbinger of things to come in California politics, and the New York Times  covered “a battle of ideology in a city unaccustomed to that sort of election,” astutely noting, as I did here at the San Diego Free Press during the primary, that this contest is “a test of whether yet another big-city Democrat can be elected by riding a wave of populism, much as Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York did last fall.”

And that test is happening because last November David Alvarez defied the pundits and political insiders and beat the prohibitive favorite, Nathan Fletcher, in the race to face Kevin Faulconer in the run-off to be San Diego’s next mayor. This was a seminal moment for San Diego—perhaps the biggest political upset in the history of the city.   [Read more…]

Faulconer’s Fantasy History TV Ad: “Times When Union Cronies Ruled San Diego”

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Faulconer is hoping that you just won’t remember that the pension scandal occurred under a Republican mayor 

By Jim Miller

As we head down the stretch run of the campaign to elect San Diego’s next mayor, Kevin Faulconer’s anti-union hysteria has reached critical mass.

In his latest TV ad a very serious woman’s voice warns us that despite the fact that “We need progress in San Diego,” David Alvarez wants to “take us back to times when union cronies ruled San Diego.” She goes on to warn us that Alvarez is being brought to you by “union bosses” who want “lavish pensions” and “no accountability” while “streets crumble” and “neighborhoods suffer.”

Cue the gritty black and white footage of San Diego in ruins.

While I have already dealt with Faulconer’s historically challenged and wildly misleading claims about pensions and the effect of Proposition B in last week’s column, it’s worth further reviewing the ridiculous nature of Faulconer’s faux history.   [Read more…]

Mayoral Race Polling, Pensions, and Plutocracy

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By Jim Miller

Last week a new poll by Public Policy Polling (PPP) funded by the Democratic Party came out that showed the race to become San Diego’s next mayor a dead heat with Alvarez at 46% and Faulconer just behind with 45%.

In another poll, Latino Decisions and the Latino Victory Project appraised Latino voters on the race and got radically different results than both the earlier Survey USA/UT-SD poll, a Republican Party poll , and the more recent PPP effort showing that Alvarez leads 75%-10% among Latino voters. The Latino Decisions’ analysis argues that, “Rather than showing a 46-45 result, with more accurate Latino data the PPP poll would show Alvarez leading Faulconer by 5 to 6 points.” Thus their evaluation concludes that outreach to and mobilization of Latino voters could put Alvarez over the top.

This was followed by yet another Survey USA/UT-SD poll yesterday that did not follow the Latino Decisions model but still showed Faulconer up by only 5%, an eleven-point surge in support for Alvarez since their last survey. So by almost all accounts it’s a tight race as we head toward the finish line.   [Read more…]

David Alvarez is the Living Embodiment of King’s Dream; Faulconer, Its Antithesis

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By Jim Miller

This year our ritual celebration of the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. comes in the midst of a contentious mayoral election.  And while some might try to bracket this year’s remembrance off from the ugly fray, that would be a mistake.  As I noted in an earlier column on this subject, remembering “a sanitized version of King as a vanilla saint who called on us to just move beyond our differences does a disservice to him and his legacy” because “[o]ur collective remembrance of MLK is most useful when it troubles us.”

And King would be deeply troubled to see where we are today nationally and locally.  Yes, the man who said, “one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring” would be profoundly disturbed by the fact that we are living in an era of historic economic inequality.

He would decry the reality that here in San Diego the wealthiest 20% of households take in half of all income in the region while more than 28% of working San Diegans earn less than a self sufficient wage and one out of five children in San Diego lives in poverty.   [Read more…]

Kevin Faulconer, Man of the People?

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By Jim Miller

Meet Kevin Faulconer, man of the people. He’s running glossy commercials about how he’ll be “a mayor for all of us” and talking as if he’ll be the guy who will focus on neighborhoods that “have been underserved by this city for too long.”

His website and ballot statement have been scrubbed of any unpleasant reminders that he is a Republican backed by San Diego’s traditional power brokers, and he just can’t stop reminding us that there is “no such thing as a Democratic or Republican pothole.”

Like the Republicans at the national level who have decided that they can claim poverty as an issue while refusing to raise the minimum wage, extend unemployment benefits, or stop cutting services to the poor, Faulconer seems to think that a couple visits south of the 8 and a new catch phrase will suffice to bring home the votes of naïve Democrats and Independents who will fall for his rhetorical head fake while failing to note that he opposes the prevailing wage, increasing the minimum wage, efforts to support affordable housing, bonds for infrastructure, and, of course, allowing working class communities of color to craft their own community plans if large corporate interests oppose them.   [Read more…]

A Tale of Two Cities: It’s Our Choice

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By Jim Miller

At the national level, there are signs that 2014 might be a hopeful one for progressives. In New York City Bill De Blasio was sworn in as mayor pledging to fight the “inequality crisis” with a bold progressive agenda addressing housing, education, and economic opportunity at all levels: “When I said we would take dead aim at the Tale of Two Cities, I meant it. And we will do it. We will succeed as one city.”

Many in the national press are pointing to De Blasio’s victory along with the momentum the living wage movement is gaining in cities like Seattle, and buzz around the effort to draft Elizabeth Warren to run for President as evidence of a shift in the national narrative about the question of inequality that bodes well for progressive populism and the country as a whole.

In a column that has been widely distributed across social media E.J. Dionne makes the case that even moderates should be cheered by this because, “For a long time, the American conversation has been terribly distorted because an active, uncompromising political right has not had to face a comparably influential left. As a result, our entire debate has been dragged in a conservative direction, meaning that the center has been pulled that way, too.”   [Read more…]

San Diego’s Unlucky 2013: The Year That Can’t End Fast Enough

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By Jim Miller

…the emergence of the local plutocracy’s strategy of rule by ballot initiative is a genuine threat to our local democracy.

Last year, I rang out the New Year with a list of the best in San Diego culturally and politically in 2012. This year begs for a grimmer assessment. Better yet, politically, 2013 deserves to be tossed from the house with the caveat that it not let the door hit it in the ass on the way out.

It would be tempting to do a bottom ten list as there are so many deserving candidates in all quarters, but let me just reiterate what I wrote last summer, that much of what we saw transpiring in our fair city brought to mind Mark Twain’s pithy assessment of “the damned human race”:

I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the lower animals (so-called), and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man.  I find the result humiliating to me.  For it obliges me to renounce my allegiance to the Darwinian theory of the Ascent of Man from the Lower Animals; since it now seems plain to me that the theory ought to be vacated in favor of a new and truer one, this new and truer one to be named the Descent of Man from the Higher Animals.

  [Read more…]

Merry Christmas, Sex Pistols Style

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By Jim Miller

Every holiday season one of my favorite tasks is collecting and delivering all the toys donated by my union brothers and sisters in the American Federation of Teachers to the Labor Council office for the annual toy drive. My union, along with many other San Diego locals who participate in this annual ritual, do so in order to help out the families of unemployed workers struggling during the holiday season.

This year, just a few days after I made my usual delivery, a friend shared an article with me from Dangerous Minds on another, way cooler but little known solidarity effort from the Golden Age of punk rock: “When the Sex Pistols Saved Christmas.”  It was on Christmas of 1977 that the notorious Pistols played their last gig in the United Kingdom in Huddersfield as a benefit for striking firefighters who were in the ninth week of their struggle and were down to next to nothing. The Fire Brigade Union was striking because, as the piece notes, the cost of living was skyrocketing and “the pay in the pocket of the average worker was worthless.”   [Read more…]

Selling Kevin Faulconer: The Big Bamboozle

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They want you to glare at the union worker asking for a cookie while they walk away with the whole jar.

By Jim Miller

Last week over at the SD Rostra they posted an interesting commentary entitled “Electing Kevin Faulconer: Make a Clear Distinction on Fiscal Conservatism” that outlined the path to a Republican victory. While not particularly surprising, the strategy suggested there is revealing in some important ways.

What, according to our friends on the right, needs to be done?

First of all, it appears that the early polling has awakened them to the fact that the guy who the Lincoln Club yearned to face is “a serious candidate” who should “not be taken lightly” despite the fact that he is “a sycophant for the same people (labor unions and progressive activists in the Democratic party) who gave us Bob Filner.” Thus, the theory goes, a GOTV effort needs to make use of Jerry Sanders and Carl DeMaio to appeal to Democrats who voted for pension reform.   [Read more…]

“The Defining Challenge of Our Time”: Four Things Obama Should Do To Really Start Addressing Inequality

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By Jim Miller

Just as he did last summer during the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, President Obama addressed the issue of economic inequality last week during a speech on the minimum wage and health care, which he delivered in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Washington D.C.  His message was stark and pointed as he told the crowd that, “The combined trends of increased inequality and decreasing mobility pose a fundamental threat to the American dream, our way of life and what we stand for around the globe.”

Sounding a populist note, Obama decried the fact that American workers at the bottom end of the pay scale are continuing to “work their tails off and are still living at or barely above poverty” and called the rising level of economic inequality “the defining challenge of our time.”
Even more encouraging, the President specifically referenced fast food workers on the eve of the Fight for 15 national day of action as well as the plight of health care and retail employees. Such open talk about inequality, class, and economic exploitation is long overdue from the President and, one hopes, indicates a welcome embrace of a populist agenda.   [Read more…]

On Black Friday: I Would Prefer Not To

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By Jim Miller

As the Salon story reposted here on Black Friday noted there were about 1,500 protests around the country on our annual day of consumer madness mostly designed to shine a light on the horrendous corporate practices of Walmart, America’s beloved externalizing machine. While Walmart’s propaganda insists that the company is a provider of good jobs and many benefits to our communities, the facts suggest otherwise.

Protesters took to the streets outside Walmarts across the country to splash some cold water on the consumer delirium. Indeed, even Santa got hauled into the pen for civil disobedience at one demonstration.

Inside the stores, away from the protests, things were a bit more disturbing and, as ABC News reported, many customers documented the holiday fun by taking “photos and videos of bloody noses, paramedics wheeling stretchers, women smacking one another on the head, security officers wrestling shoppers to the ground and employees yelling at shoppers to stop recording the melees on their cellphones.” And for those who want to keep a tally of shoppers who were truly dying for a bargain, there is now a website called, “Black Friday Death Count” that does precisely that.

While all of this makes us want to condemn those few “nuts” out there engaging in murderously uncivil behavior, the meaning of Black Friday is much deeper than we’d like to think.   [Read more…]

Redemption Time: Alvarez Beats the Odds and Keeps Hope Alive

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By Jim Miller

Last Tuesday, fortune favored the bold. David Alvarez defied the pundits and political insiders and beat the prohibitive favorite, Nathan Fletcher, in the race to face Kevin Faulconer in the run-off to be San Diego’s next mayor. This was a seminal moment for San Diego—perhaps the biggest political upset in history of the city.

It just wasn’t supposed to happen. Guys like this aren’t supposed to have a chance. Nobody knew who he was, the favored one had already been chosen, and all the experts thought he couldn’t win. He had powerful party insiders opposing him, the Governor of California campaigned against him, Sacramento politicians came out of the woodwork to support his opponent, and he was down near the single digits in the polls.

Everybody knew it was a crazy to run a little-known Latino councilman from South of 8 in a low turnout special election against a well-funded, favored son of the local establishment. It wasn’t his turn. The deck was stacked against him. Only folks who’d lost their minds would support him.

Then he won. David beat Goliath.   [Read more…]

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