Happy Veterans Day
Happy Veterans Day to all and thanks to all of those that have kept our nation free and able to have free speech as we do here at blogabarbara. Whether we agree or not with specific wars -- especially our current one -- I, for one, honor those who serve our country. Thank you.
Also, good luck to Laurie Zalk and everyone at Our Daily Bread -- the fire this morning will require some heavy clean up.
Finally, I noticed that Travis has taken on a more appropriate tone in his editorials of late -- what's going on? Is it just that the campaign is over? I look forward to more of that -- whether I agree with him or not.
It might be useful for us to do some research into what finance reform packages have been used at the local level -- anybody have info on this already they would like to share? Otherwise, I'll do some this weekend.
Also, good luck to Laurie Zalk and everyone at Our Daily Bread -- the fire this morning will require some heavy clean up.
Finally, I noticed that Travis has taken on a more appropriate tone in his editorials of late -- what's going on? Is it just that the campaign is over? I look forward to more of that -- whether I agree with him or not.
It might be useful for us to do some research into what finance reform packages have been used at the local level -- anybody have info on this already they would like to share? Otherwise, I'll do some this weekend.
posted by Sara De la Guerra | 11/11/2005 06:52:00 AM
Our Community Guidelines ask that you use the Blogger/Open ID login or the
more private Name/URL option when making comments. Comments using "Anonymous" will not be published. For more info, see choosing an identity.
17 Comments:
Barnwell told me he is looking into examples of the Ventura city ordinance about limits to city council campaign contributions. Might be limited there to $25 thousand per candidate per election.
Would that be a good limit here?
Also, the Barney Brantingham column on Thursday ("Young Turks") has declared that election for Mayor in 2009 already has just begun.
Not so sure News-Press editorials are any more moderate or "appropriate tone"
The jabs yesterday resumed against Pedro Nava. So brazen and obviously pandering, Nava has the audacity to hold meetings with constituents at accessible places, such as the local Farmers Market. Obviously, such meetings halfway through a two-year term are intended just to suck up to voters. Why else would a state assembly representive, while the legislature is out of session, want to meet with people?
And then I see an ad on page A6 of Newspress today that Nava is speaking on November 18 at a big meeting convened by chambers of commerce, regarding transportation and traffic issues between Santa Barbara and Ventura County. That's just crazy! AS IF local business groups care about that, especially the voters. When will Nava get in touch with what really matters to his constituents?
I don't think Travis has moderated -- he now has two bites of the editorial apple: one, the editorial, the other his op-ed column where he can be fully vicious without any moderating from McCaw/Cole.
There, yesterday, he rolled on about how wonderfully Iya did (first in the council on voting day, now, THAT is a new statistic!) while dismissing Marty's more than 10,000 votes, probably a record number for a Santa Barbara mayoral race, although I don't have the votes of the 90's.
It wasn't a vindication of her policies, he said, just a reflection that she is a Democrat in a Democrat town (as though Iya is not.) Well. She won against 2 other active candidates, one of whom was very well known with two prior terms on the School Committee - and supported by the paper. Good for all the winners but why, Travis, sneer at the number one vote-getter, the mayor?
And the sneering at Dianne Channing on a first race, getting more than 5,000 votes - without any newspaper endorsements is mean-hearted and very stale, while they trumpets their endorsee's Tyler's 4,496 (11.14%) votes, exclaiming that he got that many even though he was on vacation this summer and not campaigning! ...Had any other candidate been vacationing during the season, s/he would have been slammed. True, though, Tyler did well for a candidate who said outright he was not going to ask voters directly for their votes, that is, he would not precinct walk. Does show that the N-Opress can indeed matter.
(Vote totals as of 11/11: 10,731 for Marty - 59.21% of the vote; 6,157 for Lanny. 33.97%
ROGER L. HORTON 9188 20.18%
IYA FALCONE 8478 18.62%
GRANT HOUSE 7622 16.74%
LORETTA REDD 6346 13.94%
DIANNE CHANNING 5073 11.14%)
As for campaign finance reform, seems to me that it is potentially questionable if it is coming from the Council, especially those up for re-election in two years, as most likely, Barnwell, and not from the voters. An incumbent has a distinct advantage anyway; maybe there should be a graduated scale with incumbency worth X amount of dollars? ...just a thought.
Calm down. Marty won handily against herself. You should be happy. You didn't think Lanny was really a factor did you? You cannot disparage the value of a News Press endorsement and simultaneously complain that your candidate didn't get that valueless endorsement. It's over, Time for some navel gazing about what went wrong. Time to work on some skills.
Uncle Rico
A graduated scale is fine, where incumbency should be worth $ 1x value, while being a challenger is worth a donation of $ 2x value.
But Barnwell definitely seems like he sees how much money is needed for a competitive re-election for himself, and he does not like that hill to climb. He also just might want to avoid conflicts of interest and influence peddling. What a concept.
All the breakdown means regarding votes on election day versus votes as absentee is that the advertising blitz worked, so more people were swayed to vote for Iya very late in the process, with advertising fueled by the huge influx of new money by interests that want a favor later for a city government decision to go their way.
Votes are votes, and they all count the same. An interesting dissection of the tally would be the absentees that came in early and were in the totals on election night, versus the additions of the absentee ballots that were turned in late and will appear in the final count next week. Would late absentees reflect the same proportion of votes as polling place votes that same day?
Seems like early absentee votes tallied are more of an indication of a candidate who has longer-term and broader appeal and a more solid and loyal base.
More votes on election day versus early absentees also implies a better GOTV effort and ground war. Two years ago, the infamous Das had more votes on election day than Helene received, but, of course, Helene recived the most total votes, which, again, is all that matters.
The spin that more votes were cast on the day for Iya than for Roger was amusing or interesting for about 5 minutes as the polital watchers chatted among themselves in the elections office while the returns were displayed on the big screen. But after then, such spin is just that, and a sad statement when it appears in an editorial days later as meaningful. One would think the friends of Iya could come up with something better?
Maybe jumping into the election finance reform party would be good as fresh spin for friends of Iya, as the Newspress article yesterday already has four council members interviewed and in the party. Iya already pounced on it at the infamous city council meeting two weeks ago (the SEIU battle), when she immediatly volunteered to assist mayor Marty when Marty wondered aloud if finance reform would be a good idea and if any council members would help her. Or, did the Marty camp get this issue out very early (2 days after the election) to pre-empt Iya from doing it?
Here is the allegedly more moderated new style of editorial writing, which is subject of all the ranting in the prior comments posted.
One might conclude, though, that the PUEBLO indignation and news coverage "blasting" Falcone actually helped Iya instead.
******************
Travis Armstrong: Climbing out of their wreckage
11/10/05
Call it a triumph of Santa Barbara civility over the mean-spirited ploys of the way left.
Santa Barbarans rallied around City Councilwoman Iya Falcone on Election Day, making her the top vote-getter among those who actually went to their polling places to vote on Tuesday.
Examining the final unofficial results from the precincts and those from the early absentee balloting shows a remarkable shift in this City Council election.
(All absentee ballot results aren't available. County elections chief Joe Holland said on AM 1290 yesterday morning that countywide about 25,000 people turned in absentee ballots on Tuesday, with perhaps about one-fourth of them in the city. His office will count them over the next days with a first update possibly on Friday.)
Consider: On Election Day, Mrs. Falcone received 5,423 votes in precinct voting, more than 100 votes ahead of the other incumbent, Roger Horton.
It was an amazing comeback in light of the fact that Mrs. Falcone trailed Mr. Horton by 800 votes in the absentee voting received by Mr. Holland's office before Election Day.
Or consider this tidbit: Mrs. Falcone and third-place finisher Grant House were essentially neck and neck in that early absentee voting. On Election Day at the precincts, though, Mrs. Falcone out polled him by more than 750 votes.
The last days of the campaign saw the Service Employees International Union and a related outfit, PUEBLO, hold an attack news conference aimed at Mrs. Falcone.
Santa Barbarans on Election Day indicated that they wanted nothing of this kind of Karl Rove-style politics.
Mayor Marty Blum and Councilman Das Williams also teamed up to knock Democrat Falcone off the council.
Mainstream Democrats I've talked to are up in arms with Mr. Williams, in part because a motivation appeared to be to weaken his possible political rival in future races. Some appear trying to edge him out of a successful run for 2nd District county supervisor by lining up endorsements for former Goleta school board member Janet Wolf.
An aggressive ploy by the Blum-Williams-SEIU-PUEBLO team to get Dianne Channing on the council at Mrs. Falcone's expense failed miserably. She managed only 11 percent of the vote, despite the considerable money and work put in to support her. Her low numbers show the lack of punch of these would-be kingmakers.
Compare that to the virtually unknown Terry Tyler, who ran an outsider campaign that didn't emphasize donations and who came in with about 10 percent. He even took a vacation in the midst of the campaign.
For the mayor -- who's re-election merely reflected the huge Democratic registration edge in the city rather than any vindication -- her charge ahead is to clean up the wreckage she's created and end the politics of division.
I deserve that -- was thinking about today's editorial and the one the day after the election which seemed more moderate in its tone. There's been so many mean spirited ones that I forgot about yesterdays!
Pueblo's rantings did help Falcone. There is no doubt about it. And tying all of that to Prop 75 hurt 75. It lost in the County by 200 votes or so. Labor shooting itself in the foot to settle a personal score. Good move.
Thanks for the Vet's Day hail, I am a vet of Vietnam, but I didn't keep our nation free.
My dad and uncle fought in WWII and they fought for our freedom, but I can't think of a single fight we've gotten into since Nam that saved our freedom.
I agree with the above post re: 75. Pueblo and SEIU made personal agendas a greater priority than the greater good. After using the "Press Conference" to slam the Borgatello family we find out that House as accepted money from them as well as Falcone. I'm curious about how they will get the votes and apply pressure after this spectacle. And for a non-labor town like SB the ugliness of their our way or the highway heavy handed approach to 75 (as well as any of their issues) moved voters away from labor and towards voting for 75. As a result 75 wins in Santa Barbara and labor is hurt even more. Please keep up the good work.
Interesting tidbit here. I talked to Bob Hansen today and he said that he went to the Spearmint Rhino to unwind after the election and bumped into Terry Tyler there, who quickly left upon recognizing "Protest Bob"...
Really great. Bob Hansen, great source. You are truly scumbags. Your need to not only win but destroy reputations is despicable. You get three sources on that?
So what is wrong with patronizing a local business, Spearmint Rhino?
We can make up all we want and post it anonymously here, but the real intent is a discourse on issues and strategies, not character attacks.
If patronizing a local business was the issue Hansen would have run into him at Longs. The post implied deception and shame both hallmarks of this Blog and its patrons. Say goodnight Nels. Just close the closet door.
Would everyone please leave poor Nels alone -- don't assume that he has anything to do with this blog. Just because you write it ten times doesn't mean it's true. The comment about the closet door was inappropriate.
Also, posts are from the public not the creators of this blog. Please don't make the mistake of assuming we have responsibility for what people like yourself say.
3 sources past Protest Bob -- if it were going into the newspaper, yes. This isn't a newspaper and any one of us can discern whether to believe a source like Bob Hansen.
who cares whether or not it is true? isn't it funny that he chose to say something like that? Not just that Tyler was there bit that he was as well!
No Sara, these folks think that by repeating something over and over again, such as a tv commercial talking up "honesty and integrity" it does make it true, remember perception is reality
Post a Comment
<< Home