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.

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:

Say it ain’t so

So…

There have been rumors circulating about endorsements for the School Board and City Council.  I’ve heard a lot of variations from different sources about what actually went down, but the best I can piece it out is this way.

I’ll start first by saying, I know that the initial reaction will be to point fingers at the two easiest targets in this tale, but I’ve been contemplating how everything shakes out and honestly, for me, the biggest issue here is one of integrity on the parts of the candidates who weighed the political math and determined it was worthwhile to either pull an endorsement or not endorse at all in order to reap the rewards of a more “valuable” endorsement.

You asked, they answered: Jeff Cambra, City Council candidate

1. What is the hardest decision you’ve had to make in your professional life?

Many years ago, my father and I started a family business. He was the sales person, and I was the operations manager. We struggled to grow the business for a long time. I moved back home to keep my expenses low, my mom helped with the books, and my dad brought in the business. Our sacrifice and hard work paid off, and we had a successful growing family business. As time progressed, there were changes taking place in the industry that would make our service obsolete. I developed an exit plan and identified several markets we could move into with new products. My father did not understand the market changes or agree with my assessment. A short time later, sales plateaued and a number of our larger customers began to get their products directly from the manufacturer. Ultimately, I made the decision to close down the family business to protect the remaining assets.

Almost final City Council questionnaire

So a couple of weeks ago I asked folks to help crowdsource a questionnaire for City Council candidate. Ooh, speaking of City Council candidates, yesterday I received some info that one of the City Council candidates might be out of the running:

Word is that Beverly Johnson may be dropping out of #Alameda City Council race

— Lauren Do (@laurendo) August 27, 2012

That’s right, it’s not official official yet (aka there have been no press releases out of the campaign yet) but it appears that — from the rumors around town — that Beverly Johnson is dropping out of the race.   So, if true, it could be that she simply realized that she was done with the City Council.   Early rumors had reported that she was no longer interested in serving.   But now with the wrench thrown in with her appointment to the Office of Administrative Law, perhaps it has something to do with that.  I mean, the commute would be pretty hellacious.

Anyway, back to the crowdsourced questions.