Just between you and me, about three months, maybe four months ago I was seriously considering just ending this blog. Things were a little quiet, I was pretty happy with the direction the City was going in. It’s like all of those angry girl rock stars like Alanis Morrisette and Shirley Manson from Garbage, once they sang out all their complaints and issues, they sort of ran out of things to say. I sort of felt like that.
But now…
I mean.
W.
T.
F.
People.
Beyonce knows!
A few races I’m watching closely. The Alameda mayoral one, of course. We have an interesting situation where both candidates are females, a match-up that hasn’t existed in Alameda in probably ever.
The other must watch race is the Oakland mayoral election. RCV is especially interesting because of how Don Perata, who would have won in a traditional match up four years ago, was edged out by Jean Quan and the anybody but Perata campaign. This year the front runners are (mostly) female: Jean Quan, Rebecca Kaplan, and Libby Schaaf. But I’m going to watch because I want to see where Peter Liu ends up. Did you know he was featured on Jimmy Kimmel? The full read of his position on the digital divide is pretty hilarious as well.
As usual, I’m going to give out my best Brain, Heart, Gut predictions for this election. As a reminder, the “Brain” is who you logically believe will win based on actual data and stuff. “Heart” is who you want to win. And “Gut” is who you feel will win based on nothing more than the churning of your bowels.
If you want to memorialize your picks in a contest, check out Mike McMahon’s annual contest where the winner will receive nothing more than accolades of being either a really good guesser or the biggest political geek in Alameda.
I have to say that I was always a little surprised of who came out to rally behind Frank Matarrese when he ran for Mayor against Marie Gilmore and Doug deHaan. However, you didn’t get the full sense of the transition of support for Frank Matarrese until this election. It’s funny because if you look at the list of people and organizations who donated to the Slate back in 2006, it mirrors the list of supporters for Frank Matarrese today.
It’s so strange to see the transformation of Frank Matarrese from being in the “developer’s pocket” to now the protector of all that is good and righteous. I don’t know if it reflects more on him as a politician or the people who are rallying around to prop him up that formerly were the ones lobbing stones at him.
So the rest of the endorsements/what I already voted for, I didn’t include everything, just the ones I felt strongly about.
Measure I (Alameda school bond): Yes.
It’s not gotten a whole lot of attention, but infrastructure issues at most Alameda school is definitely an issue. Not necessarily the school my kids attend, but every other school in Alameda is in dire need of some money to bring the schools up the the 20th century not just the 21st century. We expect huge things from our children in the future, we should be willing to give a little to make their learning experience not suck balls. Vote yes on Measure I.
Did everyone check out the video, interestingly enough the Mayor of Alameda, Marie Gilmore, is featured advocating for people to support local schools. A sitting School Board member running for Mayor is not. Go figure.
I just realized that I haven’t yet released my election recommendations because, well, everyone else is doing it and I’ve done it year after year, why break with precedence.
If you haven’t yet guessed, for Mayor I have already voted for Marie Gilmore. I say “already voted” because I like the whole absentee ballot thing because it’s really quite simple to knock it out in my spare time.
It’s fluffy but is pretty well done for a local election:
Why am I voting for Marie Gilmore?
The other day I was watching the Daily Show and Jon Stewart had, as his guest, the author of a book about when tabloids finally took over coverage of politics in journalism: Matt Bai. At the end of the interview, Matt Bai wrapped up the interview with this quote:
I think we drum good people out of politics who are defined by the single worst thing they’ve ever done as opposed to the context of their public life. And I think we make it much much easier for people who have no business holding office to enter the process because when you’re not talking about ideas and world views and agenda, when you’re talking about character and personality it makes it very easy for someone to float through the process without ever having to explain themselves or demonstrate what they know.
I thought a lot about this in context of Alameda elections in general, and not just this one, even though the character and personality seem to be one of the few reasons people have proffered to vote for Trish Spencer (she’s friendly, she talks to people, she listens). It’s not as though Alameda lacks in talented, dedicated, and smart people. I just think that most people don’t want to be, as stated by Matt Bai, “defined by the single worst thing they’ve ever done.”
Generally I do a huge roundup of all the article about candidates and whatnot and throw it up on my roundup page. But I’m feeling lazy right now, just an overall sense of “meh” about this election in general, however I did get around to updating the endorsements that have begun to roll in for the candidates. There are not a whole lot of surprises so far, the all Democratic affiliated clubs went for Marie Gilmore for Mayor and Stewart Chen and Jim Oddie for City Council. The Sierra Club opted to only elect to endorse Frank Matarrese. And the Green Party for Alameda County, which has the strangest endorsement procedure, went for Trish Spencer for Mayor and Frank Matarrese for City Council.
The Alameda Journal/Oakland Tribune went for Marie Gilmore for Mayor and Jim Oddie and Frank Matarrese for City Council. But I think the only endorsement that I was actually surprised at was the one from the East Bay Express.
Sometimes Facebook has the best stuff. On my newsfeed yesterday, someone shared a photo snapped at Alameda Wine Company. Now, I have to say that the husband and I used to go to Alameda Wine Co. and whenever we were lucky enough to have someone watch the kidlings it used to be a stop during our infrequent date nights because the husband really liked the place. I don’t drink — I think I’ve mentioned this before — but the non-alcoholic offerings were always lovely.
Fast forward and about a year and a half ago someone posted on Yelp a really horrible tale about an interaction she had with the owner of the Alameda Wine Co. I’m pretty sure I didn’t actually write about the incident as a separate blog post, but I think I did tweet about it. I can’t find my tweet now, but it probably came up on the feed in the corner. Someone else recounted the story in my comments section here which was a bit of a detour from the original topic, but seems to happen a lot with you folks.
Interesting.
So, before I left for Vietnam at the end of September I received a campaign mailer that was, ostensibly, anti-Mike McMahon and anti-school bond. The mailer had no identifying information of who sent the mailer itself. Given that this community tends to lose its shit over political phone polls and likes to call even the most basic phone poll a “push poll” if it has anything remotely negative in it, I’m shocked that in the weeks that I was gone that this anonymous mailer hasn’t received more traction.
The only identification on the mailer itself is the permit number for the bulk mailing company which, I assume, belongs to the company that printed the flyers.
Why is this a big deal? Well, according to FPPC rules there must be a disclosure of who paid for the mailer if it went out to 200 people. From the FPPC:
Blogging Bayport Alameda 