Wah wah waaahhhhh

The other day this letter was sent out to resident anti-everything David Howard, “publisher” of Action Alameda from the City of Alameda:

All I do is win

Yesterday, Abel Guillen finally conceded in the race to replace Sandre Swanson against sitting Vice Mayor Rob Bonta.   Honestly though, it was a bit of a nail biter at the end because while Rob Bonta was in the lead, it was ever so slight and according to results watchers, with each precinct that rolled in Rob Bonta’s lead shrank considerably.

However, I think we all — and Rob Bonta included — we’re a little too confident that he would sweep this run off election given his showing in the earlier election.    What the campaign underestimated was the sheer force of Abel Guillen volunteer machine which, from what I understand, mobilized a strong get out the vote campaign for him.

Minority majority

I sort of mentioned it yesterday, but wanted to clarify even more an interesting tidbit about the new face of the Alameda City Council.   I think the changes that happened on November 6th nationally is reflected in our own local City Council.   One big thing that came out of Tuesday’s election was: don’t bet against Nate Silver, he will own you almost every single time.   The second thing is, people of color are going to continue to grow in prominence in elections as the complexion of the nation changes.  And while some people are freaking out over the purported demise of “traditional America” (read: white America) in Alameda, the change happened so gradually and organically that it didn’t even dawn on me until someone pointed it out.

As I noted yesterday, come December, there will not be one white male sitting on the City Council dais, with the exception of John Russo, but he’s not an elected officer.  This is notable given that only in recent memory were we able to note that Alameda had its first non-white City Council person in Hadi Monsef (1985).   It’s first Black vice mayor and acting mayor in Al DeWitt.  And in 1996, its first Asian Pacific Islander American Council person in Tony Daysog .   Shortly after that came Alameda’s first female Asian American city council member in Lena Tam, then Alameda’s first Black female mayor in Marie Gilmore.

That’s a wrap-up

For some reason, I didn’t feel nearly as invested in this election as I did two years ago.   It felt like there was so much more at stake two years ago, this year it just seemed like any which way the election went, it wouldn’t be THAT bad if any of the candidates won this time around.   This year the City Council race was kind of “meh” and even though the outcome was pretty much as my gut anticipated — although I expected Jane Sullwold to do much much better than what actually happened — Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft ran a nearly pitch perfect campaign.    She had collected nearly all the important endorsements, but she also had a good ground game and it showed in the outcome.

Tony Daysog ran a lean campaign but in the end the combination of name recognition and the door-to-door campaign put him over candidates that had a lot more money.   Name recognition was probably the biggest asset in Tony Daysog’s corner.   If Beverly Johnson had stayed in the race, it’s pretty much a gimme that she would have won, probably beating out Tony Daysog, but perhaps not Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft.

In the end I think Stewart Chen lost the campaign for himself because with the amount of money raised and the type of endorsements he had, he should have easily won over Tony Daysog.   I think the endorsement scuffle might have lost him some key votes and in the end, it doesn’t appear that the addition of the AEA endorsement was much help on election day.

Girl put your records on

As I tweeted last night, after the first few ballots rolled in, there wasn’t a lot of movement in the election results locally.   In the School Board, Trish Spencer, Barbara Kahn, and Niel Tam took early leads and held on to them for the remainder of the night:

Same with the City Council, Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft and Tony Daysog took early leads and held on tight with Stewart Chen holding on to third, since it appears that Rob Bonta managed to hold on to  slim lead of Abel Guillen, Stewart Chen will be up for re-election in two years completing out Rob Bonta’s term:

The incumbents held on to their leads in the Hospital Board, and the Stewart Chen move to the City Council will open up another seat on the Hospital Board, but in this case the sitting Board Members will appoint, the third place finisher does not automatically win a seat.

Open election day thread

Finally, election day is here.   I am so done with this election season.

I will be constantly refreshing the Five Thirty Eight blog until the results start rolling in nationally.

For local results, check out the Alameda County Registrar of Voters website.

Otherwise this is a free and open thread for all things election related.  If you have not yet voted, VOTE.

Check the record

Let me just tell you, getting this video to this state took forever, between ripping the DVDs (two of them!) and getting them processed, spliced down and uploaded, I thought I wouldn’t get it done before Election Day.  Yes, I finally have video of the December 2009 vote for the anti-bullying curriculum.

Here’s the thing, at the beginning of this election, Trish Spencer embraced the fact that she:

support[s] the education of anti-bullying for all (differently-abled/special needs, ethnicities, gender, LGBTQ, race, religion) to ensure a safe learning environment.

But at every turn when she had an opportunity to vote for Lesson 9, she was determined to vote against it.   I’ll point out that in public critiques of Trish Spencer’s record, no one has called Trish Spencer “anti-gay,” but it’s interesting that she and her supporters attribute clarifying and pointing out Trish Spencer’s record on voting against Lesson 9 as calling her “anti-gay.”   Before a detailed record of her votes and the minutes became public, Trish Spencer conveniently omitted that she voted “no” on continuing using Lesson 9 until the complete curriculum was established.

Reading the tea leaves

Much like the “Bronco Bamma” girl, I’m really quite “done” with this whole election.  Between the national and local elections, next Tuesday can’t come fast enough.   While I’m not quite at the point of shedding tears quite yet, my stomach lining can’t take any more of the stress.  But I just wanted to point out that, if you haven’t had quite enough about election stuff and you still haven’t quite done enough research yet, I’ve been keeping my election roundup page quite updated.

And in the grand tradition of trying to read the tea leaves, my election Brain Heart Gut predictions.   I can’t recall if I did this for 2010, but my 2008 guesses were right on City Council wise, but I was way off on my School Board predictions.  So for those new to the Brain, Heart, Gut game, you make predictions based on who you logically think will win (Brain), who you want to win (Heart), and who you believe will win (Gut):

Who I’m voting for: Hospital Board and City Council

As promised — and given that absentee ballots have already gone out — my election recommendations!

First, the sort of lighter stuff out of the way:

Vote YES on A1, because the Oakland Zoo is a regional jewel dammit.   Have you seen those Sun Bears and their habitat?  It is awesome.  Did you read about how the Oakland Zoo saved four tigers that were living in some crazy personal zoo in Texas?  That’s the kind of stuff you’ll be supporting.

Vote NO on Prop 32, I don’t know how this one stays out of the courts if it passes, plus it’s ridiculous.

Vote YES on Prop 37, because knowing what is going into your food empowers you to make better food choices.

Now on to the local stuff:

You asked, they answered: Tom Lynch, School Board candidate

Tom Lynch was the only one of the initial non-responders to actually turn in the answers and he did it in record time, here it is!

1. Turnover of principals at Wood, Lincoln, Encinal and other schools have been high, how important do you think stable leadership is for schools?

You can add Bay Farm School to the above change in leadership list.

Stable leadership is important. Having the right person for the right job is more important. The hiring and retention of site administration is under the domain of the Superintendent. In both the Lincoln and Bay Farm cases, the Principals were both hired by our current Superintendent and left while working for her. In both these cases, I believe the individuals moved on for opportunities that better suited their styles, one Principal moving on to become a principal in Lake County, the other moving on to become an elementary school principal in Dublin, Ca.

And in the case of Bay Farm, the new Principal is a much better fit for the school. Teacher’s moral has improved and the interaction with Parents is much higher.