This just in: we’re not the Wisconsin of the West. There were some big winners and losers in last week’s election and the principal players themselves have gotten the bulk of the attention. Here are a few of the most noteworthy victors and flops besides the candidates themselves. Let’s start with the triumphs:
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The Starting Line—Missing at the California Ballot Box: Older, White Voters
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…
The Starting Line –A Very Good Night for Progressives in San Diego and California (With Election Results!)
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.
Election Day 2012 – Progressive Election News and Views from a San Diego Point of View (w/ Regular Updates)
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 […]
End Shadow Government in San Diego and California: Elect Bob Filner and Frustrate Charles Munger and Company
If you can get past the multi-million dollar glut of garbage that Carl DeMaio and his sleazy allies are throwing at Bob Filner in the closing days of the election, the choice San Diegans face is a simple one: do you want the same old moneyed interests running San Diego or do you want to take a step toward a more democratic city government that listens to the voices of ordinary citizens more than to the pleas of the plutocrats?
Debunking the Opposition to Proposition Z, San Diego Schools’ Opportunity to Keep Moving into the 21st Century
San Diego voters are being asked to authorize $2.8 million in bonds for school repair and construction in this fall’s election via Proposition Z. This initiative should be a straight up or down deal; whether or not to raise property taxes to support this vital part of our infrastructure.
Instead, a coterie of right wing groups with a barely disguised extremist agenda have turned the discussion on Proposition Z into a battlefield, mined with half-truths, pock marked by a barrage of lies and overrun by waves of tea party types convinced that they are stopping an assault on common sense itself.
The Educated Voter – San Diego School Board Races
This is Part One of series on ballot choices in San Diego that relate to our schools.
There’s been a war going on over San Diego Unified’s Board of trustees for a long time now, and this year’s races for school board are just the latest skirmish.
There are two contests for seats on the San Diego Unified School Board and they’re both important. Politicians (of all stripes) are prone to saying “it’s about the children” whenever they talk about education, but the fact is there are many other issues at play. Candidates for our local top spot all have preened before the cameras touting their education platforms, when the reality is that the School District is financially and politically independent of the City Government.
The Mayor and the City Council can’t actually do squat about what’s going on with schools. Change, when and if it comes to local schools, is through the Board of Trustees, popularly known as the school board. [Read more…]
Why Carl DeMaio Has Made San Diego the “Battleground City” for his Radical Privatization Agenda
DeMaio Carries the Radical Right’s Agenda of the Private Ownership of (Our) Government
It was in the middle of April back in 2011, and a couple hundred local Republican bigwigs were holding a gala “unity night” at the Kona Kai on Shelter Island. Mayor Jerry Sanders was joining Republican Councilman Kevin Faulconer, other honchos and establishment types from the San Diego Chamber of Commerce, the Lincoln Club, the Taxpayers Association, plus cadres of right-wing activists – all coming together in an orgy of unified puffery. They had come together to celebrate the launch of a ballot initiative that would severely undercut the power of public sector unions to bargain for their members in San Diego.
One of the heroes and firebrands of the local rightwing, Carl DeMaio got up and made a speech. Somewhere in his spiel, he challenged the gathering with a question – a question that would define the coming year and months in San Diego. DeMaio – a City Councilman – called upon his audience and asked them: “Are you ready to make San Diego the Wisconsin of the West?” His fellow Republicans cheered. They were ready, as was described by the rightward SDRostra.com
[Read more…]
The Starting Line – Zombie Attack in San Diego Underway
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…]
Fighting the Bias of the ‘Voice of San Diego’
by Larry Remer
How would you feel if you were a baseball player in the World Series and you found out that the first base umpire was on the payroll of the other team?
That’s kind of how I feel about the Voice of San Diego’s coverage of Proposition Z.
I am running the Yes on Prop. Z campaign; and for months I’ve sparred with reporters and editors from ‘Voice of San Diego’ about the negative slant of their coverage. And they just parried back and defended what they’d written, as reporters usually do when campaigns and public agencies complain their stories. [Read more…]
The Starting Line— DeMaio Campaign Tactic Backfires, US Atty Under Investigation as Calls for Resignation Mount
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…]
Save Big Money: Get Your Dental Work Done in Tijuana
I have been going to Tijuana for dental work for five years. In that time I’ve had two root canals, several crowns and an implant. I’ve also taken my two granddaughters down there for routine dental work a couple of times. In the process I’ve saved several thousand dollars and been completely pleased with the results.
There are probably a lot of good dentists in Tijuana and some bad ones. The problem for most people is knowing who to go to. People need referrals to good dentists so please feel free to comment on experiences that you’ve had with dentistry in Tijuana – both whom you’d recommend and who to stay away from. Personally, I would recommend the office I’ve been going to which is Baja Oral Center. There is a network of dentists there ranging from children’s dentistry to general dentistry to tooth implants. All the dentists speak perfect English so there is no language barrier. One call to Berniece, the receptionist, whose English also is great suffices to set up an appointment. By the way it’s a local call. They have a 619 area code. So that’s two barriers out of the way: language and referral. And did I mention that they’re very friendly and accommodating to your schedule? [Read more…]