Conventional wisdom will argue that a campaign attack mailer that intended to take out Sue Greenwald, and perhaps Stephen Souza as well, in fact worked. After all, the two long-time incumbents finished fourth and fifth respectively in the five-person field.
Woodland Daily Democrat Editor Jim Smith, from afar, wrote: “Candidates should have learned a lesson from Yolo County judicial candidate Clint Parish that it never pays to try and smear your opponent and then fail to say your sorry. Parish may have been a long-shot going against Judge Dan Maquire, but his filthy mailers proved toxic. Parish might have recovered had he simply apologized profusely, but he didn’t and was destroyed at the polls.”
He adds: “Dido (sic) for Sue Greenwald and Stephen Souza, who were seeking to return to the Davis City Council. Greenwald was done in by her husband who was caught moving political signs, and Souza was tainted by a mailer he didn’t authorize.”
Sue Greenwald herself, in an interview with the Davis Enterprise, played a similar card.
“I have heard from very good sources that the polls showed me winning a seat all along, even up through the last week,” Greenwald wrote in an email. “Major effort went into swinging the election, including a massive effort to get out the uninvolved student vote and a huge spurt of very negative social media activity.
“The very low voter turnout made such efforts more successful. I was also vastly outspent, which, unfortunately, does make a huge difference.
As Dan Wolk’s campaign manager, Will Arnold, who also ran the successful 2010 Rochelle Swanson campaign, noted, there is something to that view, but it may be too simple.
“I can say very confidently that I was very surprised that Sue didn’t win a seat,” Mr. Arnold said. “My prediction was that she was safe. I was very surprised at that. I had a feeling it would be close. I think the spread about what I thought it might be, but if I had been taking any bets, or anything, I would have bet with Sue as my number two with the rest falling as they did with Lucas, Brett, and Stephen.”
“Obviously the thing that people are pointing toward as the watershed moment in the election would be the attack mailer that went against Sue,” he said. “So it’s natural to draw the conclusion that [the attack mailer] had an effect, and if you infer that the intended effect was to hurt Sue obviously and then also potentially to hurt Stephen by putting his name on it, and then if you look at the results, those two ended up on the wrong end of the election – then I think it would pretty much the only conclusion that naturally jumps out at you that the mailer potentially had its intended effect.”
However, Mr. Arnold argued that this was a bit of specious reasoning. He argued it was like the proverbial rock that keeps the tigers away. Just because you see the rock and there are no tigers, does not prove any sort of causal relationship.
Instead, he sees a more simple explanation – citing the years of service both Sue Greenwald and Stephen Souza have given, while along the way people have come aboard and fallen off from their support.
“I would venture to guess that has more to do with the election result then just one mailer,” he said, “but the mailer is what jumps out at folks and that’s going to be the big question mark – how much of an effect did that have on the ultimate result.”
That gibes with Stephen Souza’s thoughts.
“I’ll sit down and look at these things, but what I’ve learned from my time on the City Council is that sometimes you make people happy and sometimes you make people unhappy with your decisions,” Mr. Souza told the Enterprise. “I probably did things that made people unhappy more than made people happy.”
In our view, it is a bit dangerous to draw broad conclusions from very narrow sets of data. The fact is that there was very low voter turnout. The other fact is that the results were very close.
Still, given the advantages of incumbency, even a narrow defeat for the incumbent sends the strong message. It our sense that a number of voters were simply ready for a change on the city council.
And in fact, since 2010, the entire council has now turned over from the very divisive councils of 2004 until 2010, with a solid majority voting bloc that led the city into the fiscal peril that we must now take drastic measures to extricate ourselves from.
Still, it is difficult to believe that the mailer itself did not have an impact. Its impact may have been subtle, however, reminding the public of the incident involving Sue Greenwald and Ruth Asmundson that may have worked against both incumbents in a way that most may not appreciate.
The conventional wisdom is that Stephen Souza was hurt by the implication that he was involved in putting out the mailer. He may have been hurt by the reminder of the days of the gang of three.
A number of former Stephen Souza supporters cited another incident, less publicized but still poignant and captured on YouTube. There Mr. Souza, in early 2011, was advocating, begging, pleading, to be made mayor and willing to cut any deal. The argument was not about the good of the community but what he thought he deserved.
For people following the process, that moment stuck out in their minds as undignified and self-serving.
Stephen Souza was also tainted by the fiscal collapse – he was a key voter in support of the union contracts that put the city in peril, he was a key voter on a key 2009 budget that failed to address the growing problem, and he was the key swing voter on the 2009 and 2010 MOUs.
Unlike other candidates, while he claimed that the world had changed, he kept his ties to the public safety unions, accepting endorsements from both fire and police.
The buzzword against Sue Greenwald was collaboration. It is almost a derivation of the term, civility, which Don Saylor began using in 2007 despite the obvious ironic implications; when that word somewhat became tainted, the lexicon shifted slightly.
Many of the Sue Greenwald supporters expressed admiration for her willingness to make unpopular decisions and to be the voice that spoke out against the existing order.
But her opponents point to the fact that regional leaders wanted little to do with her, no current elected official supported her candidacy, and she was in their minds, unwilling to work to common solutions.
One of the big questions going into election day was whether on balance this perception would be a net positive or negative for her. It is still unclear, though we’ll lean toward in the end it being part of the reason enough voters were ready for a change.
More subtly was a rift on the left between Sue Greenwald and newcomer Brett Lee. We noted this early on when Sue Greenwald criticized Brett Lee during the Chamber debate. It is not that her criticism was out of line per se, it is simply that she was the only one to do it.
Several Sue Greenwald supporters publicly advocated the bullet vote and several told me directly that she instructed them to only vote for her. It is difficult to know for sure, but it is quite possible that had both campaigns cooperated with the other candidate most philosophically aligned, that they may have both prevailed in this narrow election.
Again we will never know.
One thing we know for sure, Davis will have five councilmembers that in September of 2009 the majority of the people in this city had never heard of.
People have spoken of the potential for collaborative efforts and increased ability to meet challenges through consensus approaches. We shall see how that evolves in the face of what we expect to be increasingly heated contract negotiations.
On the other hand, people worry about the loss of institutional memory. I am of two minds on this. On the one hand, bad institutional memory is not an asset. On the other hand, there are programs and functions that, if you do not understand the history, you may not understand why they were put into place to begin with.
Careful consideration and consultation on existing programs and government functions can probably side-step these concerns, but they are certainly there.
For me, if the attack mailer or the controversy over the signs had any impact on the outcome, it was to remind voters of what they already thought they knew and did not like about the incumbents.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
There is a very good indicator that Vanguard posteers are breathing a sigh of relief that the election is over . . . yesterday’s two articles got exactly one Comment posted. I don’t expect this article will get much commentary either.
Having completed my sigh of relief, and prefacing my comments with the obvious fact that I know very little about campaign strategy, I would like to offer my thoughts about this years election.
Having no direct ties to the local business community I was very neutral about the potential participation of the Chamber PAC. I had no preconceived notions prior to seeing their first ad which was clearly well within the legal realm as well as what we have come to expect from most political ads, namely, misleading by tying a position to their candidates while ignoring the fact that all of the candidates held the same position. Yes, I know this is common practice, but the question is, should it be ? Is this really the level of discourse ( or lack thereof) that we want to be decisive in important elections ?
Same for the second very glossy, well constructed ad that essentially said that their favored three candidates were going to bring in high paying jobs and restore prosperity to Davis. Now I agree that the thoughtful voter is not going to believe this, however, clearly the PAC thought that there might be enough voters who would not give this careful thought and realize that it is well beyond the capacity of any three candidates to do this. That, and name recognition and association with a pretty and positive flier are what the PAC was willing to spend money on. Again, not exactly strong representation of a thoughtful, deliberative approach to who is best equipped to lead the city.
Then finally, we had the door hanger ploy which I think was the most cynical of all the PAC contributions since the explanations put out by Kemble Pope are hardly reflective of the ad itself which merely was an essentially two word “protect rights” link to their candidates names and the very popular Measure D.
While I agree that all of the above are legal and within the norm, I had hoped that the ChamberPAC contribution might be a way to elevate the conversation above the norm. In that, I have been very disappointed. Whether or not any of these strategies had any impact on the election is, for me beside the point. I would like to see our community moving away from a “sound bite” attempt to attract votes and towards a more deliberative and contemplative approach to choosing our leaders. I feel that the PAC contribution did nothing to move us in that direction.
One more thought. I only addressed the issue of the PAC activities because, in my opinion, those are the only ones worth discussion. The hit piece mailers, were so odious and dirty that they do not bear anything other than frank condemnation.
That voters were being urged to “bullet vote for Sue” just reinforced the perception that she cared little for anything other than her own needs and opinions. How she responded to the sign destroying/blocking and the union visitor/mailer incidents also reflected on her as much as the incidents themselves did.
The untold story of this election: the alleged polls. Who had them? What did they show at various stages? Why didn’t any get quoted in the Vanguard ot Enterprise? Did any reflect on the mailer, the sign blocking or any specific event or issue? Why did Sue rely on other peoples’ polling, and whose polls were they?
Interesting that Sue’s evaluation of the results is that of someone who sees herself victimized by unfair, outside forces and Stephen’s is that of someone condidering his own actions and how voters reacted to his performance as a sitting councilman.
Sue Greenwald has clearly pinned her defeat on the Chamber PAC effort supported by a broad-based business coalition effort. Perhaps she’s right, perhaps wrong, it is difficult to say in the absence of exit polling data.
Also, Brett Lee and Greenwald supporters both in the media and in private were becoming increasingly agitated over the PAC IE campaign in the last days of the election. Clearly both camps thought the IE campaign was having an impact. Whether their concerns were justified, we’ll never know.
Finally, there’s this quote from Lucas Frerichs today on another thread, “one faction of the campaign was really geared towards exposing myself to folks who I didn’t know. In a city of 65,000 people, nearly 70,000 people, there’s certainly a bunch of folks who I do not know.” Lucas doesn’t identify which faction he is referring to, who else but the PAC could it be?
Given the foregoing, I’m a bit surprised that the impact of the PAC campaign is being glossed over both by Will and David.
-Michael Bisch, Davis Chamber PAC
The Chamber PAC ran a smart, innovative, effective, transparent IE campaign consisting of high-quality TV, print, and social media advertising. In addition, we ran a sustained, weeks-long, behind the scenes campaign of emails, text messaging, telemarketing, and personal contact. We received much feedback throughout this effort and it’s pretty clear from the responses that we moved votes.
Our campaign strategy was based on a tight, low voter turnout election and fortunately that’s what we got. Furthermore, other conditions and events were conducive to our effort. As a result, achieving the objectives set out for us was akin to tipping a boulder down a hill rather than rolling a boulder up a hill.
-Michael Bisch, Davis Chamber PAC
Michael… when will the PAC be issuing its final donation/expenditure report? No rush, just curious…
Michael, your preferred candidate finished dead last and the others would probably have won if the ChamberPAC hadn’t spent a time or made a single phone call. You did, however, significantly alter the Chamber of Commerce brand. You are now an advocacy group with a narrow focus and a reputation for distortion and cynical political tactics.
Congratulations.
Its hard to say what impact the Chamber PAC had. Sue clearly had a large set of detractors from the beginning of the campaign; many people just didn’t believe that she has the listening skills and demeanor for what is clearly a collaborative job. The PAC endorsed Souza and he didn’t win.
Regardless, the PAC and DTB put economic sustainability on the table as an important issue, and that is very important for this city. I’m glad they clarified which candidates will help build a sustainable economic growth for Davis so that we can hopefully retain much of the high level of services that we have come to enjoy in Davis.
JustSaying said, “How she [Sue Greenwald] responded to the sign destroying/blocking and the union visitor/mailer incidents also reflected on her as much as the incidents themselves did.”
Yes, and equally interesting was her comment in the Davis Enterprise post-mortem soliciting donations because she herself had loaned her losing campaign $8,000. That’s right up there with Steve Souza pleading to be made vice mayor because, goshdarnit, “I deserve it.”
Don : I agree with your analysis of the PAC
JustSaying said . . .
[i]”Interesting that Sue’s evaluation of the results is that of someone who sees herself victimized by unfair, outside forces and Stephen’s is that of someone condidering his own actions and how voters reacted to his performance as a sitting councilman.”[/i]
That is indeed a stark contrast. I suspect that Sue has absolutely no idea how she transformed me from 1) an active campaigner on her behalf for her reelection in 2008, to 2) a neutral citizen asking what I perceived to be relevant questions, to 3) an active campaigner against her reelection in 2012. She would probably argue that all those events wee the result of my misguided and tragic susceptibility to ignoring the issues and falling prey to the discussion of personalities.
Don Shor said . . .
[i]”Michael, your preferred candidate finished dead last and the others would probably have won if the ChamberPAC hadn’t spent a dime or made a single phone call. You did, however, significantly alter the Chamber of Commerce brand. You are now an advocacy group with a narrow focus and a reputation for distortion and cynical political tactics.
Congratulations.”[/i]
Don, while everything you have said may well be true, I suspect that two human factors will cause your assessment to be fleetingly brief. 1) memories are short, and nothing the PAC did was egregious enough to cause memories to stick. I’d even say that the vacuousness of a lot of the actions will contribute to their lack of memorableness, and 2) in a What Have You Done For Me Lately world, the Chamber can quickly cause the memories to fade even faster if they do something noteworthy in the coming weeks and months to help improve the local economy.
For me the key takeaway from the PAC’s activities in this election cycle is that the new Chamber leadership is trying hard to make things happen, and that is in stark contrast to the prior Chamber leadership’s track record of making nothing happen.
I have no concrete evidence to objectively support this assertion, but with that said I think Brett lee was the biggest winner as a result of the Chamber PAC’s efforts. More than anything Brett needed name recognition and the fact that the Chamber PAC’s real platform was ABS, but they excluded Brett as part of their endorsement list created quite a bit of discussion in the “what about Brett?” realm. Further, some of Brett’s earliest public appearances were “green” and I’m not talking about low carbon footprint. The Chamber PAC’s stimulation of discussion allowed the maturation of Brett as a candidate to become a viable topic of discussion, and some people who may have had a less than ideal first impression were given the opportunity to obtain a second impression, and I suspect that garnered Brett at least 230 “3rd votes” that he might not otherwise have had.
[i]” I think Brett lee was the biggest winner as a result of the Chamber PAC’s efforts.”[/i]
I think there is a substantial minority in Davis which is either no-growth or “progressive” or both which backed Brett and was the reason he won.
The same folks voted for Sue; and most of them also voted for Dan Wolk. I don’t think any of them supported Stephen; but some, due to his Food Co-op history, might have supported Lucas.
So if I am right, the question is why didn’t Sue get more votes? I think the answer is that while almost everyone who supported Brett voted for Sue also*, about 5% of the “progressives” or “no-growthers” do not like Sue for one reason or another, much of that like probably more about personalities than positions, and their lack of support for her cost Sue a few hundred votes.
I thought in advance of the election that Sue would win, because she still has 95% of the “progressives” in support of her, and I figured that Sue would also pick up a number of votes from people who are not “progressives,” but respect her for her positions on the budget and other fiscal matters.
I now think Sue probably did not pick up the votes of many of those fiscal voters. Why not? Partly because many of them might have thought there were 3 other fiscal conservatives to support (Dan, Brett and Lucas); or perhaps due to the inferred attacks on Sue by the Chamber, they felt she was not pro-business and that cancelled out her fiscal conservativism; or perhaps due to the Sign-gate and the Union-gate and Ruth-gate, they simply developed a negative view of Sue as a person, and that caused them to not support her candidacy in the end.
———————
*She only finished 230 votes behind Brett, and there are still more than 5,000 votes which have not yet been counted. So if both were largely drawing from the no-growth/progressives, their vote totals should have been very close to each other, and they are very close.
Of course we are all speculating. I think Sue suffered most from the affects of the attack mailer and the way the lawn sign “scandal” was handled. I also share opinions of some of the other posts but I think these I mention applied to more votes. Then again, it’s about how all affects added together are the determinant. The vast majority of voters are very private about their thoughts and I think it is that mass of voters most affected by the 2 very publicized points I mention above. It is my guess that they are not out getting a lot of other bits and pieces of more obscure information.
Why are there 5000 more votes yet uncounted?
Matt: [i]”2) in a What Have You Done For Me Lately world, the Chamber can quickly cause the memories to fade even faster if they do something noteworthy in the coming weeks and months to help improve the local economy.”[/i]
Anything proposed by the Chamber now is tainted by their actions in this election. I urge them to back off and reconsider their approach, and let the council members take the lead on economic development issues.
dlemongello: “[i]I think Sue suffered most from the affects of the attack mailer and the way the lawn sign “scandal” was handled.[/i]”
I don’t think the mailer had any initial negative impact, on the contrary I think it gained Sue some sympathy votes. What I think hurt Sue in the long run was how [b]she[/b] responded to both the mailer and the lawn sign issue. Both of these incidents emphasized Sue’s tendency to proclaim herself a victim, and to try to blame anyone but herself for her problems. It is not the scandal, but how you respond that has the lasting impact.
Don Shor: “Anything proposed by the Chamber now is tainted by their actions in this election.”
Honestly Don, the only people who seem to think that the Chamber is tainted are you, David G. and Michael H, and in your case you already had a negative opinion before the election season began. It frankly just sounds like whining at this point.
I think the Chamber accomplished exactly what it needed to, which was to make economic development one of the central topics moving forward. Stop throwing mud and begin working to build a better future instead.
Mark, I agree with you about the lawn sign incident, I was trying to say it subtly. I don’t mind presenting one’s side in a reasonable way, that’s only fair, but an apology goes a long way and that is what was missing.
As for the mailer, I think the less vocal people are the ones who checked out the video and had the intended response.
The chamber has a job to do and they got 2 of their 3 desired candidates. Time to get to work on whatever the goals are keeping in mind the actual needs and benefits for the community.
So I’ll throw one out there, I do not think we need another parking structure, just for example. There is plenty of room in the ones we already have.
Don Shor said . . .
[i]”Anything proposed by the Chamber now is tainted by their actions in this election. I urge them to back off and reconsider their approach, and let the council members take the lead on economic development issues.”[/i]
I respectfully disagree Don. The PAC is the PAC and the Chamber is the Chamber IMHO.
As you know, I am not a member of the Chamber and never have been, so I think I’m both detached and reasonably objective on this issue.
Mark: “I think the Chamber accomplished exactly what it needed to, which was to make economic development one of the central topics moving forward. Stop throwing mud and begin working to build a better future instead.”
Go for it. I’ve participated in those discussions here, and am perfectly willing to do so again. But there are a couple of people who probably should back off. One of them posted this on his Facebook page after the election: [img]http://davismerchants.org/vanguard/PopeGreenwaldpic.jpg[/img]
Don: “[i]One of them posted this on his Facebook page after the election:[/i]”
And you just gave his comment far more exposure than it would have had otherwise.
Your personal feelings about Kemble should not be the issue; nor your feelings about the Chamber and Chamber PAC. What should be the issue is how we fix the problems we face. Our discussion should be about the solutions to those problems, and the five people we will have have on the new Council seem to be well suited to work together to find answers. What a sea change from the team we had two years ago.
I think we’ve found some consensus on economic development issues here. I don’t know how many of the council members spend time on this blog, so perhaps we could summarize the areas of agreement from previous threads and forward them.
It’s fascinating just how personal the discussion got during this campaign period…no, not amongst the candidates…no, not about the candidates.
dlemongello: [i]”Why are there 5000 more votes yet uncounted?”[/i]
See this story in The Davis Enterprise ([url]http://www.davisenterprise.com/local-news/city/ballots-left-to-be-counted-in-local-elections/[/url]): [quote]A total of 4,826 absentee votes have yet to be counted from Tuesday’s election, according to Freddie Oakley, Yolo County clerk/recorder. However, [u]Oakley does not know how many of those votes are from Davis[/u] or how greatly they will affect the City Council election results.[/quote] A note and a correction: A few days ago I asked Freddie specifically ‘how many Davis late absentee ballots have not been counted?’ and she gave me the number reported above, 4,826. I then passed my information to The Enterprise and that brought about this Enterprise story. But it appears that I misunderstood the 4,826 number. I thought that was for Davis only. Apparently, it is for all of Yolo County. Sorry for my mistake. [quote] The Elections Office also has 975 provisional ballots still to count.[/quote] Freddie told me that based on past experience, most of the provisionals will not be valid. Nonetheless, 975 + 4,826 = 5,801. Again, many of those are not from Davis. My bad. [quote]
Any absentee ballots dropped off at the polls the day of the election must be counted manually, which prolongs the certification process. The Yolo County Elections Office expects to have the final certified tally finished by Friday. The three winning council members are scheduled to be sworn in at the July 10 meeting. [/quote]
[img]http://randomchickblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/mybad_cover.jpg[/img]
Within a few weeks of beginning their new council term, they will be dealing with three important issues that are likely to consume much of their time.
1. Budget/MOU’s/layoffs
2. ConAgra (I’m unclear exactly where the process is, but I expect they will have a report of some sort to deal with soon).
3. Water project and rates.
Somewhere in the next few months they will be able to start moving on economic development issues, but I expect the above to take precedence. That doesn’t mean the city’s economic development staff has to sit still. I’d urge the council members to direct staff to bring them reports and action plans for:
a. annexation of Nishi. Specific language for a ballot measure to be put before the voters within a year.
b. review and consideration of zoning changes for the downtown and parts of east and central Davis to allow greater flexibility for development proposals. Request review of potential development sites, input from property owners and residents.
c. review and consideration of specific sites in the downtown where taller buildings could be allowed. I don’t know what obstacles exist to greater density and height downtown. Request input from property owners, existing businesses, and nearby residents. There may need to be a “visioning” process as was done for B Street.
d. staff report on progress on filling vacant retail sites in existing shopping centers, and development of the additional pads near Target at Second Street Crossing.
That’s probably enough of an agenda for the council and staff for several months.
The council priorities that Don listed at 7:47pm are worth pursuing in my view.
Earlier in the day, Don graded the Chamber PAC based on criteria that I’m unfamiliar with, for example “favored candidate”. The actual objectives that the Chamber board tasked the PAC with were far more strategic and not at all focused on personalities and the short term:
1. Crafting and executing electoral strategies that result in improvement of our members’ economic vitality and the quality of life for the entire community.
2. Interviewing all council candidates in a debate conducive to properly assessing their grasp of economic matters and the critical role a robust local economy has in fostering a sustainable community.
3. Considering recommendation and possible support of a council candidate or slate of candidates that support the mission of the Chamber.
4. Raising funds to support PAC activities.
5. Forming a broad-based, business community coalition to support these efforts.
If these objectives look familiar, it’s because we listed them in the press release that kicked off the effort. I think this underscores how transparent our effort was. I wish to repeat again, the June 5th election campaign was only an initial step in a very long journey ahead of us.
-Michael Bisch, Davis Chamber PAC
With the election results having the second and fifth place finishers separated by a mere 1,000 votes, I’m not sure how useful a post mortem is. The bottom line is that five good candidates ran for office, but only three seats were available to win. Dan Wolk won handily, but the next four candidates were only separated by 1,000 votes. It was anyone’s race to win or lose. I would also add that Steve Souza accepted his narrow defeat w grace. And both Steve Souza and Sue Greenwald have been very dedicated public servants, and all of us should greatly appreciate the efforts they have given to this city.
In regard to the Chamber PAC, I am still at a loss as to the high degree of vitriol aimed at them. They did nothing illegal or particularly unethical in so far as I can assess. The charge that they should have run a “cleaner campaign” misses the point of what political campaigning is all about – persuasive speech. To hold them to some ridiculously high standard while giving a pass to every other special interest group, e.g. environmental groups who hold candidate forums, League of Women voters – both of whom have engaged in some pretty questionable campaign tactics in the past, smacks of uncharacteristic and extreme animus/bias toward the Chamber PAC…
Am I missing something here, or should the results of an election not be declared until ALL THE VOTES HAVE BEEN COUNTED?
What a great conversation between Don and DT Businessman. Welcome back, Don.
Excellent observations all, Elaine.
Matt Williams: [i]…yesterday’s two articles got exactly one Comment posted. I don’t expect this article will get much commentary either.[/i]
How are we doing so far?
“Anything proposed by the Chamber now is tainted by their actions in this election.”
It wasn’t before? After all, they are a business advocacy group, so, aren’t their actions always viewed as such an advocacy group.
I’d like to think that the comments on the Vanguard made a difference. The pounding that Sue got helped define and reinforce her negatives. Sue even derisively remarked about the impact of social media in the Enterprise. The same is true for Steve. He also took a pounding here. In the end, both lost narrowly, but that is how incumbents usually lose because once in office the can build a constituency of support.
As i have said before Ruth’s friends didn’t vote for Sue so some of the Dan and Brett voters went for Lucas with their third votes. Sue had to know that her confrontation with Ruth hurt her. Even before the mailer you could tell from her decision to stop commenting in response to my repeatedly raising the issue here that she didn’t want to talk about it.
Then there is the age thing, Dan’s slogan was “A new generation of leadership” so the young people who participated might have gone that way. Also that slogan may have worked for people tired of the acrimony that partly defines Sue’s tenure on the council.
Bill Ritter estimated that Sue had a base of about 4000 votes and that is about what she got. This suggests that she was no longer able to pick up third votes and that her virulent anti-growth base was all she had left. Sue actually alluded to this in the Enterprise, with a vague remark about the electoral process, an odd statement for someone elected 3 times under that same system.
Sue has rarely been popular with the electorate. She has run for city council 6 times and come in no more than third place five of those times. She peaked in 2004 but over the last eight years her quirkiness was replaced by contentiousness. Matt ponders this when he wonders how Sue alienated him. Of course this is unfair to Sue because we don’t usually give up on elected officials over a single issue. We grow away from them over time. Twelve years is a long time for people to become estranged from the politics and personality of an elected official. It finally caught up to Sue.
PS Davis wrote about how he/she thought this would be Sue’s last campaign if she had won. I challenged this because some people get wrapped up in their identity as an elected official and the only way they will quit is to lose or become incapacitated. At some point we were going to have an electoral postmortem on Sue, so from my perspective, now is as good a time as any.
During the campaign I said a lot of things about Sue, but I never said I didn’t like her, even correcting those who assumed as much from my posts. It is my sincerest hope that she adjusts to private life quickly and happily. Jon Li, who wrote a nasty letter to the editor, or Kemble Pope, who posted a picture from The Wizard of Oz are examples of political immaturity. The election is over we should thank Sue and Steve for their service and move on. Thank you Sue and Steve.
“Jon Li, who wrote a nasty letter to the editor, or Kemble Pope, who posted a picture from The Wizard of Oz are examples of political immaturity.”
“Political immaturity” is certainly a very kind phrase used to describe exactly the same kinds of activity that were written about endlessly and decried as unworthy of someone hoping to have a leadership position in our community during the campaign.
I think this comment is illustrative of how we are willing to condemn behavior as unacceptable when it comes from those with whom we disagree, and are willing to give the same behavior essentially a pass as “immaturity” when it comes from someone we perceive as “on our side”.
Med, but I too opposed Sue during the campaign. Bashing someone during a campaign is politics. As Bill Clinton said “You can’t blame your opponents for applying a strategy that beats your brains out with regularity.” Kicking them while they are down after losing is different because its spiteful.
COME AND JOIN US FOR A FUN! FUN! FUN! CELEBRATION to WELCOME the NEW DAVIS CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS!
MEET DAN WOLK, LUCAS FRERICHS, BRETT LEE, JOE KROVOZA AND ROCHELLE SWANSON THIS MONDAY!
5:30PM – 8:00PM, MONDAY, JUNE 11TH, JOHN NATSOULAS GALLERY
LIVE MUSIC!
APPETIZERS PROVIDED!
NO HOST BAR!
ORGANIZED BY THE DAVIS DOWNTOWN BUSINESS ASSOCIATION
SPONSORED BY THE DAVIS BUSINESS COMMUNITY
-Michael Bisch, DDBA Co-Prez
“Bashing someone during a campaign is politics. As Bill Clinton said “You can’t blame your opponents for applying a strategy that beats your brains out with regularity.” “
I would like to see us hold ourselves to a higher standard both during and after campaigns. I would like to see elections based not on bashing our opponents but on describing our own beliefs and proposals. I would like to see candidates describe their own outlook, goals and visions in a factual and fair manner.
And I most certainly do not look to Bill Clinton as a moral guide in any sphere of life !
” I would like to see candidates describe their own outlook, goals and visions in a factual and fair manner. “
I think the candidates did that. I wasn’t running for anything so croaking from the anonymous darkness of Toad Hollow is not quite the same as standing for election and if you fairly want to accuse me of taking the low road go ahead.
“And I most certainly do not look to Bill Clinton as a moral guide in any sphere of life !”
Yeah, he couldn’t keep it in his pants but that isn’t how he will be judged by history. He also had tens of millions of jobs created during watch and left the country with a real budget surplus.
“Yeah, he couldn’t keep it in his pants but that isn’t how he will be judged by history. He also had tens of millions of jobs created during watch and left the country with a real budget surplus.”
That was actually not what I was primarily referencing. I was thinking mainly of his inability to refrain from lying. And I agree with and was not casting any aspersions on his ability and accomplishments as president.
I think my comment that you quoted would have more accurately reflected my opinion had I stated that I would like to see us all, whether candidates, private citizens, union or PAC members, expresses our opinions, perspectives, goals and proposals in a respectful and positive manner. I think we would achieve much more as a society working together collaboratively rather than spending so much energy tearing each other down.
Just one woman’s opinion.
[quote]”I think this comment is illustrative of how we are willing to condemn behavior as unacceptable when it comes from those with whom we disagree, and are willing to give the same behavior essentially a pass as “immaturity” when it comes from someone we perceive as ‘on our side’.”[/quote]Excellent observation, medwoman. A random analysis of [i]Vanguard[/i] articles and comment pretty much proves your point.
Good luck, however, on your continuing battle to get collaboration, cooperation, generosity, positiveness and goodwill into our courts and politics. Respect competition is the most we can hope for and, maybe, the only one of these that’s critical to the system(s) working.
“Good luck, however, on your continuing battle to get collaboration, cooperation, generosity, positiveness and goodwill into our courts and politics. Respect competition is the most we can hope for and, maybe, the only one of these that’s critical to the system(s) working.”
I happen to believe that we make our world with our individual choices. We can assert over and over that the best we can do is to “respect competition is the best we can hope for” and we can make it so. Or we could, as beings with free will choose a “kinder, gentler” form of interaction, and by example change our world. In any event, thanks for wishing me good luck with my hopes and dreams.
My guess is that the next council will be more collaborative than recent previous ones. It is sad that it took such a nasty campaign to move the community forward and bring in fresh leadership. I too would have preferred that such change would have been possible without upheaval but it seems it was not in the cards we were dealt.
[quote]annexation of Nishi. Specific language for a ballot measure to be put before the voters within a year.[/quote]
Although I sometimes prepare annexation maps, I’m unfamiliar with most of the annexation process. However, it seems to me that the landowner would want to have a feasible development plan in place before agreeing to subject the land to city taxation.
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