2014 San Diego Primary: It’s #Ididnotvote By a Landslide

by on June 4, 2014 · 3 comments

in Civil Rights, Election, Media, Politics, San Diego

ballot box san diego upsideBy Doug Porter

Yesterday San Diego non-voters elected a district attorney personally embroiled in a criminal case, a county clerk supported by anti-gay bigots and a supervisor known for using taxpayer dollars to support religious causes. Call it a resounding victory for apathy and a defeat for advocates of the two tier/jungle primary voting system as a near-record low number (I’m guessing 22%) of voters cast ballots.

Approximately 12% of the city’s registered voters agreed with a corporate campaign almost completely based on lies to overturn a five-year-long community planning process. Incumbents were triumphant everywhere.

The low turnout favored Republicans. For complete local results go here; for statewide results go here. There remain 98,000 votes to be counted as I’m writing this, but past experience tells me little will change.

There will be runoff elections in November for San Diego City Council District 6 between Carol Kim and Chris Cate, the 52nd Congressional District between Carl DeMaio and Scott Peters, along with Mary Salas versus Jerry Rindone vying for the Mayor in Chula Vista. A stealth campaign by teahadist Donna Woodrum for a seat on the San Diego Community College Board failed to unseat Maria Nieto Senour.

Statewide, 4897 yes votes in Tehama made it the only county (out of three where it was on the ballot) of the state to support secession. Neel Kashkari beat out tea party favorite Tim Donnelly for the honor of being the Republican who gets his ass kicked by Jerry Brown in November. The incumbent Governor carried all but one county (Medoc) in California.

Our Dimly Aware District Attorney

shhDistrict Attorney Bonnie Dumanis survived an election-day bombshell lobbed by challenger Bob Brewer, winning re-election with 55% of the vote. A court hearing and allegations about letter revealing her relationship to be more than advertised with a foreign national under indictment for making illegal campaign contributions were too little, too late.

UT-SD’s Logan Jenkins:

What we do know is that Brewer’s late charge spooked Dumanis. To protect her lead, she went dark rather than risk adding fuel to the last-minute fire.

A rule of ink-stained thumb is that you turn B.S. detectors on high when high-stakes news breaks on the threshold of an election. You have to be careful not to get played by partisans as the 11th hour ticks down. Election Day stories tend to be varieties of vanilla.

In this instance, however, the last story, reported on the campaign’s final deadline, was arguably the best.

One measure of that journalistic excellence?

The DA’s stony silence broken only after the polls had closed.

Later in the evening Dumanis gave celebratory interviews to KOGO radio and elsewhere, brushing off questions about the latest controversy by saying she could not comment “because it is part of a criminal case.”

Our District Attorney now joins the parade of politicians who have done so much to make San Diego a national laughingstock. Word is she’s going with the “I was only dimly aware” defense.

Carl DeMaio Rallies His Troops (Sort of)

San Diego’s New Republican was all over Twitter yesterday, boasting about his election day get out the vote effort.

Thanks to the eagle-eyed Lucas O’Connor (who works for Scott Peters) we now know this election day bravado was yet another DeMaio exercise in duplicity.

Not once, but twice, DeMaio tweeted out photos purporting to show his campaign’s prowess. Both photos were actually taken at earlier occasions.

Here’s the morning social media blast:

And here’s the original, sent out May 10th.

Here’s the afternoon social media blast

And the original, sent out on April 26th.

Barrio Logan Plan Crushed – Bend Over, You’re Next

girl in gas maskThe morning lineup of UT-San Diego sermons includes marching orders for Mayor Faulconer now that the shameful campaign against the Barrio Logan community plan has has triumphed.

With San Diego voters’ strong rejection of the controversial community plan for Barrio Logan, the wise step now must be a push for compromise that will truly protect Barrio residents as well as the $14 billion shipbuilding and repair industry that is entwined with the community and that is crucial to the entire San Diego County economy. Maritime industry representatives believe the makings of a compromise already exist. But it will take coolheaded and determined leadership to put it together.

Many residents of the largely Latino neighborhood have long-simmering resentments that City Hall has failed for decades to address the land-use hodgepodge of the Barrio and the public health and safety consequences of residences cheek by jowl with the shipyards and the industrial businesses that serve them. They saw the new development plan and the zoning changes to implement it as a matter of community justice. The campaign by the business community to force the plan and the zoning to the ballot — in the form of Propositions B and C — became new reasons for resentment. So, too, will citywide voters’ rejection of the propositions….

…Mayor Kevin Faulconer, who helped lead the opposition to Props. B and C, must now do what he said he would do — lead the effort to find a compromise acceptable to all.

This is RepubliLogic(™) at it’s finest. The rejected plan was the result of FIVE YEARS of meetings and public hearings, backed with millions of dollars in city-sponsored studies. Five years of trying to get community members to the table, to believe that the system could work in their favor. Five years worth of work buried by outrageous pack of lies and deceptions promoted with a straight face by “trusted” politicians.

The industry actually accepted a last minute compromise back in June 2013 and then reneged on it. There were compromises made at every step of the way leading up to the final two proposals.

The only compromise left to be made is for the community to accept the maritime industry’s proposal. That’s not compromise, that’s capitulation. And so it will be. They’ve got the goons, the talking heads and the money to back their position.

Not only was this campaign a big “screw you” to the people of Barrio Logan, it was a prototype for the kind of 21st century effort we can expect to see over and over again from the Lincoln Club/Chamber of Commerce types seeking to impose their will on the people. Instead of wearing Klan robes and carrying torches, these modern-day fear-mongers simply saturate the media with messages designed to invoke a sense of helplessness.

One need look no further than the sham minimum wage initiative being peddled at various retail locations throughout San Diego for confirmation of just how cynical (and evil) these people are. Local hoteliers, whose business model is predicated on paying the least possible amount of wages to their employees, are covertly backing a minimum wage measure for the November ballot that would exempt all their workers and, for that matter, the vast majority of all those at the bottom of the economic scale. They are seeking to exploit public sentiment for a higher minimum wage, period.

RepubliLogic

Here’s the Congressional version of RepubliLogic

This is from Doug Porter’s daily column at San Diego Free Press, our online media partner.

{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }

tj June 5, 2014 at 12:14 pm

Yes we voted, but we don’t recall having such a hard time getting motivated before doing so. “Campaign promises” have come to mean nothing (in most cases). Campaign “literature” is mostly shallow & meaningless – it reveals little more then who has the big $$$ support – usually, the last candidates we should be voting for.

But let’s face it, unless we are the top 5%, a public employee, or a selfish special interest – the ruling class – we, the 90+% majority, are UNREPRESENTED.

So why do we vote, & who do we vote for? Often a 3rd party vote is the best we can do – even if only as a protest vote against the Big Money candidates/ representation. Maybe that isn’t much, but it still seems a bit more responsible then just sitting on the sidelines?

tj

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John June 5, 2014 at 8:45 pm

there was an election?

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UNwashedwalmartTHONG June 6, 2014 at 9:51 am

Before the winners enter office to abuse power, accept bribes & run up City credit cards, the winners’ minions ought to police the streets & clean up all the ugly signs posted everywhere. Please recycle the wire frames (just as the campaign promises are recycled) and save the red, white, & blue printed posters from the landfill; these colors don’t run.

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