You Do What You Have To Do...
Mayor Marty "The Slugger" Blum probably said it best this morning in a newspaper article on Council Member Falcone's massive spending on the November city council race:
Now that it's over -- you can tell the tone of quotes from former opponents of Falcone have gone down precipitously. Are they serious about finance reform? -- let's see a plan and talk about it here.
"She obviously had to raise that much money to get elected," Mrs. Blum said. "You have to do what you have to do to get elected."The $81,000 that News-Repress reporter Josh Molina pointed at was only the surface. If he had dug a little deeper, he could have talked about what it would take for the police association to saturate television for several weeks --- this pushes the number to well over $100,000.
Now that it's over -- you can tell the tone of quotes from former opponents of Falcone have gone down precipitously. Are they serious about finance reform? -- let's see a plan and talk about it here.
posted by Sara De la Guerra | 2/07/2006 07:59:00 AM
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24 Comments:
Marty, Marty, Marty----remember that tacky letter you sent out during the Council race, with remit envelopes for Channing and House? Stuff like that, along with Das and his soldiers working overtime to slander Iya----oh yea that stuff. That's what triggers $$ having to be spent on an election.
So, kids the moral of the story is:
stop the dirty, nasty, backstabbing campaign tactics that seem to be taking root locally.
I love the "tone" of the opponents too. They have to tone it down because their boy Das raised $75, 000 (at least)when he ran three years ago and took at least $1500.00 from John Davies as well. Wouldn't want that to be a distraction in the 2nd would they? Not too much outrage from the Campaign Reform group when that happened. But then they hadn't put all their eggs in a basket to take him out as they did with Ms. Falcone. So, please, spare us the outrage now.
Sara,
Speaking of digging a little deeper: That money spent on TV also pushed Horton and Redd, so you should probably add that to their totals as well, shouldn't you?. Also how about the coordination of monies running ads and sending mailers between the the four (Blum, Horton, House, Channing)campaigns, how much does that add to each's totals? Also the article today missed the very apparent fact that Horton raised 68,900.00 and House raised 73,200.00. Look at all the in kind donations. In addition both Horton and House also recieved $2,000.00 apiece from Davies. Grass roots and the Tortoise and the Hare? Uh, yeeeeah.
Courage
Iya -
$875 from John Davies
$875 from Mrs. John Davies
$950 from Davies' VP
Grant -
$950 from John Davies
$950 from Mrs. John Davies
$950 from Davies' VP
Somebody's got a Mark Lee project coming before council. At least Iya will put on the veneer of concern for the environmental impacts to the creek and neighborhood. Grant on the other hand is having a wet dream in anticipation of approving the project.
Let's pull back on the wanker and wet dream comments please! Unnecessary and I almost want to delete them...
Anon above -- you are right. The coordination added money to campaigns as well. Point well taken.
Agreed, Sara. Also that makes "massive" perhaps not the best adjective to apply to Falcone's spending after accurately comparing it the other campaigns. It gets down to about 10% more than House and a bit more than that over Horton. And also very close to what the "grass roots" $75,000.00+ campaign of Das Williams spent in 2003. You have to know how to read those forms and the NewsPress reporting is pretty poor.
Also, for Molina to suggest that "Falcone's spending may put that dream out of reach", is pretty funny. You wonder what races he was covering in 2003 and again in 2005. Certainly not the one in 2003 when Das spent $75,000.00 or the one in 2005 when Falcone was forced to run against the combined resources of 3 council candidates in addition to all the other candidates, plus the Mayor and the undeclared 2nd District candidate putting money from their Campaign funds into efforts to unseat her. But it's Falcone putting the dream out of reach by fighting back?
Molina is so blinded by his Das-adoration that he does not see the forest for the trees........all in all, the News-Press has become a sham
Is anyone else mystified that Grant House, the self-proclaimed patron saint of affordable housing voted for the Blankenship project. A project that has zero affordability and will only add to the gentrification of the Westside. Oh but I guess those folk on the Westside don’t complain all that much.
So who was the biggest contributor in this election?
Das. He used his name, the money he raised, his black mail of other electeds and pacs not to support Iya - that is the real campaign reform issue. That did not get reported.
i agree that the news press story was a joke. only really about Falcone, not House or Horton's money - and they had only slightly less.
The story should have been to add Das' money plus the union money along with police and fire and then add it up for each candidate.
And a big part of the missing story is that this is the very first time in recent history that a campaign to unseat a council member was orgainized meaning the candidate had to defend. And so why not report that Davies gave less to Falcone than to Das. Seems he knows who is going to win.
Too much pro-Das and anti Iya still ringing in Josh land - this story was a very immature political anaylsis.
Last Redd begged everyone for money - her op ed Sunday was another joke. The reason she did not get more is that her campaign was awful and she stood for absolutely nothing. It was hers to lose and she did it very well. Now she complains about money.
All the above, well, most - I don't know about House and Lee - but the point is are the council campaigns getting or being now out of reach and is there anything to be done about it? Can anything be done about it?
As for the first, yes, I think they are. As for the second, maybe - the activity of the Council sounds good, but it would sound MUCH better if it were coming from the people and not the beholden Council - or at least have a committee composed of city residents along with council, not just a subcommittee of the council. And three, sure, something can be done IF there is a will to do it.
With that kind of money available, I don't think there is a will......
the amazing joke is there is a 6 thousand dollar difference over a two year period between Das and Iya. What a silly story - while Firestone raised and spent $700,000 two years ago for third district and just watch Secord raise a half million. Lets stop eating our own.
Das leading the attack on Iya's money hurts Iya, Das and even Janet Wolf, it only helps Joe,
Silly silly silly
yea but what would Josh Molina do if he couldn't just write stories with a direction given to him by Das? Josh could just make it official and work for Das' campaign openly....
Please Marty, stop talking. Just read the Independent where Da Dissembler whines, once more about the Police and Fire money in the elections. Well it didn't seem to bother her in 1999 or 2001 when they endorsed her and spent it on her behalf. I guess it's only reform time when they don't endorse you, eh Marty? In 2001 you couldn't fit a razor between her and her boys and girls in blue and black in the weeks after 9/11 when they were wearing angels wings. She is awfully righteous now that she is term limited. What a hypocrite. Please take some action or be quiet.
oooo emotions are running high, must have gotten started early today.
If you talk to the Police and Fire people they know that this is how she felt all along. Unlike 4 years ago with Gil Garcia and Bruce Rittenhouse, she wasn't in a real race this year, she didn't need them and so her real feelings about Public safety became apparent. Is anybody out there really suprised?
I disagree -- Blum has and will be a strong supporter of law enforcement. Budget wise -- you've got to question raises for law enforcement when you can't afford it for everyone else.
That was really the issue. The SBPOA leadership took offense to that and made a stink with their President who really shouldn't have said anything considering his personal situation versus the Mayor.
Yes, the Mayor could have kept quiet a couple of times -- but so could the SBPOA President -- who didn't have the SBNP editor going after him every day in the newspaper. The SBPOA President's speech before council was personal more than political and not kind considering the Mayor had just been treated for cancer -- just like his son.
This is what created the perception she is anti-law enforcement -- her votes prior to her budget conscious one, were actually for raises and full departmental budgets.
Is it Bush-like? You are either with us all the time or against us? When does fiscal responsibility come into play when the Bush administration fails to give you the COPS money promised by Congress? Answer that and tell me how easy it is to give every law enforcment officer a raise every time they ask for one.
Once again, she votes no because of 5% instead of 3% per year over 2 years for POA. Total 10% over two years. She votes at the same time for 5% per year for Fire for 3 years (15%) and 4% for 4 years (16%) for SEIU. So it was that 2%, so vital to the existence of the City, for 175 PD employees rather than the more generous raises she approved for the other 750 employees that makes her vote budget conscious? Riiiiiiight. The Cops knew they didn't need her vote, it was in the bag. They wanted her to know it. She was embarrassed that she had been caught talking out of both sides of her mouth and said as much when she wrote the PD and said she would have, in fact, voted for their contract in public after voting against it in private, but since she had been busted she was voting against it. Now there is one principled stand! It was ground zero of the wacked out Council race. Those are all readily available facts. Check them out. Look at all the stories from last year it's all there.
How did Bush get into this chain of posts? Just curious.
The POA and some fire leadership guys are so pissed off because the Mayor showed everyone that they weren't the all powerfull group of bullies they try to appear. Yea they got their girl in, but at a high cost, and all the mayor lost was a bad relationship with a couple of poa and fire association hotheads. nice
POA leadership did just fine. It was ugly but Das et al and the SEIU mad the POA and Firefighters look good in the election. The police and fire were smart not to pick the same three, to stay out of the mayors race. And in three years they will be the endorsement that matters once again.
And lets remember this election was about one thing and only one thing - getting Iya out. Marty and Das lost on that big time. Right now Roger is on the fence but he will come home to the moderate land more and more and break from Das just as he did this week. Just look back at Tuesday and who won the election - Iya thanks to Police and FIre.
Police and Fire still dominate city of Santa Barbara politics. Make no mistake.
More to the point---common sense still runs Santa Barbara----when people like, say, DAS try to takeover by any means necessary---Santa Barbara voters are wise enough to step back and let reason prevail; but Das is his own worst enemy----he went around town telling anyone who would listen that only Grant and Diane would keep Santa Barbara 'progressive' (whatever the hell that means) so he could go off and run for another office----and it backfired. Now we have Grant, salivating at every developers dream to pave over what little open space remains in the city; Diane fizzled out......and the rest will be history.
5:59 Dude add some more ice to your drink. I don't think the PD or Fire people worried too much about their relationship with Marty, there wasn't one. By the by, what great cost or price did they pay? In the end didn't they do just fine?
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