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The Starting Line—Missing at the California Ballot Box: Older, White Voters

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While there are disputes over the level of voter participation in this past Tuesday’s election, one thing is certain, according to exit polls and numbers released by the California Secretary of State: Non-Hispanic white voter participation is showing a rapid decline, falling from 63% of the state’s electorate in 2008 to 55% this year.

Estimates of voter turnout have ranged widely, with some sources claiming an 80%+ turnout, a Field poll estimate claiming  0% participation and other data showing turnout more in the 55% range.  The actual numbers won’t be available for another month, as counties will be processing mail-in ballots and attempting to verify provisional voters.  Turnout in the 2008 election was 77.5%.

Inside:  Mayoral Election Fallout- Day Two, UT-SD Tries to CYA on Bogus Polling,  Why the GOP Hates Education…

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The Starting Line – Progressives in San Diego Won. So Now What?

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Okay, I know. Everybody’s sick of the politics already. The TV ads, the drama, the hyperbole. Ugh. But sooner or later that itch will come back and need to be scratched. And I feel the need to get up on my soapbox today.

I have been involved in/watching/hating politics ever since becoming a “Clean for Gene (McCarthy)” volunteer way back in the days (1968) before MTV and Comic-Con. And mostly I’ve been disappointed. This year’s election was different. “We” came close to running the table. The future, politically speaking, could very well be a progressive one.

But it ain’t over ‘till it’s over. This year’s elections were a shift in a good direction. History shows us that the reactionaries – those who would roll back the wheels of progress – are going to respond with fury and ferociousness. So I’m making my pitch today. Take a break, catch a deep breath and get ready to work even harder.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line –A Very Good Night for Progressives in San Diego and California (With Election Results!)

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Although there remain over 400,000 provisional ballots to be counted in San Diego County, it would appear that most politically progressive candidates and causes were triumphant on Election Day. A huge Get Out the Vote effort on the Democratic side of the equation appears to have yielded victories in just about every race where the changing demographics of the region made a win possible.

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Election Day 2012 – Progressive Election News and Views from a San Diego Point of View (w/ Regular Updates)

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DeMaio Floods Colleges with Anti-Filner Flyer We’ve received a copy of the flyers that were distributed on college campuses throughout San Diego today by young people hoping to dissuade young voters from casting their ballots for Bob Filner by saying that he was proposing to shut down bars.  One source told me that students were seen carrying armfuls of […]

The Starting Line –It Ain’t Over ‘Till It’s Over – Make Sure Every San Diegan Gets the Opportunity to Vote

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Contrary to what you might think from reports in the media, no candidate or issue has ever been decided by a poll, a pollster, a TV ad or even a Super Pac.

While races for the top jobs grab the most headlines, there are dozens of other choices to be made, all of which will have an impact on virtually every part of our lives.

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The Starting Line—Will It Ever End? Election Night Could Turn Into Election Week

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The Associated Press is up with a story this morning warning that vote tallies next Tuesday could turn into multi-day events.  Pointing out that the number of California voters casting mail-in ballots this year is expected to surpass 2008, with several statewide contests polling at dead even, the story says final results could take days to tabulate.

Voting officials have distributed 8.9 million mail-in ballots this election cycle, about 20 percent more than were requested in 2008, when about 42% of the 13.7 million ballots cast in the presidential election were sent by mail.  In the 2000 election, only 25% of the electorate voted by mail.

The bottleneck in the counting process is attributed to the number of ballots that are being dropped off on Election Day.  California Secretary of State Debra Bowen is quoted as saying dropped off ballots don’t even start to be processed until 8 p.m.  In 2008, 3.2 million ballots– a quarter of the total vote count– didn’t make the tally on election night.

Inside…Glen Beck at UT-San Diego, Gloria vs. DeMaio, and more…

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The Starting Line – Clinton Gives Thumbs Up As Poll Puts Filner in Front

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Congressman Bob Filner used the final debate of the 2012 Mayoral campaign to announce an endorsement by former President Bill Clinton. The face off at the local Fox affiliate was the last of twenty nine joint appearances by Congressman Filner and City Councilman DeMaio. SD Free Press blogger Andy Cohen was there, and I’m assuming he’ll weigh in with more coverage.

Meanwhile, a poll by the Pharos Research Group shows Congressman Bob Filner leading by seven points in San Diego’s hotly contested race for mayor. An analysis of the results says that 708 likely voters answered a live call (meaning that it wasn’t a robo-poll) from October 19 to October 21; 52% of the respondents were men and party identifications closely mirrored that of the city’s electorate.

The survey indicated that 47.46% indicated a preference for Filner, while 40.68% preferred City Councilman Carl DeMaio.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Zombie Attack in San Diego Underway

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Halloween is more than a trick or treating event for hundreds of Marines, Navy special ops types, soldiers, police and firefighters in San Diego today as they confront a nightmarish invasion of the living dead.

The 44 acre Paradise Point Resort on Mission Bay will be the site of a Hollywood-style production of a zombie attack as part of an emergency response training program. It’s just one part of five-day counterterrorism summit run by the Halo Corporation as an approved training event by the Homeland Security Grant Program and the Urban Areas Security Initiative. Participants (or in most cases, government agencies) are coughing up a $1,000 registration fee. The session runs through Friday.

In keeping with the holiday aura surrounding this program, the keynote speaker at the conference is a retired top spook — former CIA Director Michael Hayden.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – 17,000 Readers Said “No More”: UT-San Diego Sunday Circulation Plunges (UPDATED)

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Since taking over ownership of San Diego’s daily newspaper last year Publisher Doug Manchester and CEO John Lynch have responded to criticisms that their style of far right advocacy might be alienating readers by claiming that readership was rising.

Sorry guys. The people don’t love your act. The Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) numbers for the year ending this last September are in. Last years’ Sunday circulation beats this year’s Sunday circulation by 17,051 copies, including digital and ‘branded’ editions.

Sunday editions in the newspaper world are critical barometers. Sunday is the day that advertisers crave. Readers typically have more time to peruse the paper and copies of the paper are more likely to be shared. So losing readership on a Sunday is a big deal.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line –Three Halloween Stories About Politics That Should Send Chills Up Your Spine

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Politics takes a back seat today as the nation casts its eyes towards the East Coast and mid-west , which are under assault by Hurricane Sandy barreling from the southeast and an early winter storm coming in from the northwest. Here on the left coast life goes on and there are headlines to report.

The Giants won, the Chargers suck and there are too many political commercials on TV this week. That about covers it for today.

In the absence of any major breaking news, I’m putting out three stories that illustrate what a tangled web the media can spin when it comes to politics.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line— DeMaio Campaign Tactic Backfires, US Atty Under Investigation as Calls for Resignation Mount

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It all started with “a staff member” from Carl DeMaio’s mayoral campaign leaking an email from U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy, who was unhappy with Congressman Bob Filner for lashing out in response to attacks by the City Councilman, who had just re-stated his oft disproved claims about Filner’s pension.

This ‘leak’ was to be yet another salvo in a last ditch campaign to portray Filner as too unreasonable and hostile to be Mayor of San Diego. Instead, it’s blown up in his face. Questions about whether Duffy was in violation of the Hatch Act, which restricts the activities of government employees in partisan political campaigns, are now at the forefront of the controversy.

Now this action by the DeMaio campaign has led to calls for the U.S. Attorney to resign and a review of her actions by Justice Department officials   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Voting Rights; Don’t Take Them for Granted

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In case you haven’t noticed, San Diego Free Press has a terrific story up here about local efforts at “Poll Watching” underway via the Election Integrity Project and True The Vote, organizations with connections to the Tea Party movement. Our citizen journalists have been ‘watching the watchers’ over the past few months.

It’s pretty obvious from reading their materials that the underlying idea behind these ‘watchers’ is voter intimidation of certain classes of people that they have deemed to be suspicious. In practice—despite claims to the contrary—this has generally meant people of color, students, and other groups whose voting history runs counter to the conservative cause.

Despite promises from True The Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht earlier this year to recruit and train a million volunteers to watch the polls, the group has fallen far short of that goal. For example, Election Integrity Maryland has only about 200 recruits. Nevada Clean Up the Vote has about 700. And our SDFP observers also report a sharp decline in volunteer participation in local efforts More Inside…

Also: LA Mass Transit Exploring San Diego Link, Encinitas’ Parents Still Threatening Legal Action Over Yoga Classes

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