Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

The willow is too close to the house.

The revolution will be supervised.

In my day, never was longer.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2014 / PSA: San Diego Mayoral Election Tomorrow

PSA: San Diego Mayoral Election Tomorrow

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From faithful commentor Hungry Joe:

Mayoral election in San Diego tomorrow — progressive Alvarez vs. conservative, same-old-same-old, developer-backed Faulconer. Walked a precinct yesterday; will do the same tomorrow, doing knock & drag from about 2pm till about 7:30 (polls close at 8:00). Going to be very, very close.

We all have to put our feet on street. Every time. I do not particularly enjoy precinct-walking; I always hate it for the first 15 minutes, then get into a groove and it’s … well, not fun, but not so bad, either, and I find it enormously gratifying once it’s done. Thing is, it’s necessary. It makes a difference. And it’s something most of us can actually do.

And if you can’t, for whatever reason, you can volunteer in the campaign offices: data entry, putting polling-place stickers on thousands of door-hangers … they’ll find something for you to do.

So if you live in Mr. TBogg’s Neighborhood, don’t forget to vote tomorrow!… and remind your friends, relatives, co-workers what’s at stake as well.

And I’ll use this post for a general bleg: Which 2014 candidates should we be supporting right now? Who could use a BJ ActBlue page, more precinct-walkers, phone-bankers, whatever?

Reader Interactions

49Comments

  1. 1.

    Jon Gallagher

    Dropped the absentee ballot off Friday. The new County Operations complex is a bit tricky to get around in, so make sure you follow the signs.

    One hopeful note from former Mayor Jerry Sanders:

    “If we lose this, I think it’s really problematic for the Republican Party,” Mr. Sanders said. “The rest of the state has already been lost.”

    From your lips to FSM’s ears Mr. Mayor.

  2. 2.

    Emerald

    Oh goody. The ads will go away. So far the Rs have been hitting Alvarez with the fact that his funding comes from–gasp!–UNIONS! (run run run, flee!) and that that he’s only THIRTY-THREE!

    I dunno what’s gonna happen. Most likely it will depend on the Latino vote, as always. Maybe they’ll turn out for Alvarez. He at least has a more positive ad.

    I’d hate to see the city go back to another Doug Manchester puppet. I can’t vote though. I’m in Oceanside.

    DAMN YOU BOB FILNER!

  5. 5.

    Hungry Joe

    Yeah, Bob Filner really hurt this town. On my precinct walks I’ve had several people tell me they won’t vote for Alvarez because of him. (Apparently one progressive jerk = all progressives are jerks.)

    Some people have absentee ballots they forgot to mail. If you know anyone who’s done this — and their vote is for Alvarez! — tell them that they can drop off the ballot at any polling place tomorrow from 7am to 8pm.

  6. 6.

    esc

    I dearly love being a permanent absentee ballot voter. I mailed it in with the rent at the end of the last month. My husband has to leave early tomorrow so he can vote, the sucker. I will not miss the absurd Faulconer ads either. I have been basking in the warm glow of CBC Olympic coverage in no small part to avoid them.

  7. 7.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I’m volunteering time for Michelle Nunn, who is running for the open seat being vacated by retiring US Senator from GA, Saxby Chambliss.

    The Republican field is full of crazies (Paul Broun, Jack Kingston, and their ilk). Michelle has weak opposition in the Dem primary, but of course it would be fatal to be complacent.

    As I have said before, I think Michelle Nunn has as good a chance as any Democrat of winning this seat. It’s very far from being a gimme, but if the Repubs eat themselves alive and spend a lot of resources in the primary, I do think Michelle has a powerful opportunity to start turning Georgia purple again.

  8. 8.

    Baud

    @Hungry Joe:

    I’ve had several people tell me they won’t vote for Alvarez because of him. (Apparently one progressive jerk = all progressives are jerks.)

    I wouldn’t necessarily assume that those people are being honest.

  10. 10.

    Roger Moore

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    The other big thing about Nunn is that even one unexpected pickup for the Democrats makes it much less likely that the Republicans will take over the Senate. Even if she loses, a strong campaign there will soak off Republican resources that the could use to go on the attack elsewhere. Make the Republicans defend every seat, even the ones they think ought to be safe.

  12. 12.

    Hungry Joe

    @Baud: Yeah, good point. It’s the kind of thing you have to slough off when you’re doing the Walk — I don’t think anybody is used to people yelling nasty/mean things at them — but it gets to you (me). Encountering smart, friendly, engaged people helps a lot, though.

  15. 15.

    max

    Which 2014 candidates should we be supporting right now?

    Well, there’s always my man Rob Zerban, running again against Paul Ryan, but there’s that other Dem who might be in the race. (Zerban ran very well against Ryan, so I’d like him to give it another shot. Although he would be most likely to win in 2016.)

    max
    [‘You go election in the year you’re in, not the one you want to be in.’]

  17. 17.

    Emerald

    And on the local news tonight, top story: Settlement reached in Filner case.

    Oh yeah, they know what they’re doing.

  19. 19.

    Schlemizel

    @Hungry Joe:

    The worst I had was a guy who set his dog on me back in ’04. The ‘funny’ part was he had been identified as a Kerry voter so it was a friendly visit. The most frustrating was in ’68, I ran into so may Dems that were refusing to vote for HHH either because he was ‘tied to LBJ and the war’ or because he was ‘tied to the hippies’. Ir was maddening listening to the pure ignorance.

  20. 20.

    jibeaux

    Well, there’s Sen. Kay Hagan (D-ish, NC) defending her seat, she’s the #1 Koch target this year. She picked up the seat in the ’08 awesomeness from Liddy Dole when the Dems didn’t really expect to win it. She’s about as milquetoast a Dem as you can find, but as always light years better than the alternatives. It’s mostly a matter of whether she can hold it in a lower turnout year.
    I really wish Dems could master populism at anywhere approaching the level of Sherrod Brown, but she’s what we’ve got and she’s a fuckton better than Thom Tillis.
    Or, if you’re feeling edgy, there’s Clay Aiken running for the House.

  25. 25.

    SectionH

    I just missed the deadline to register to vote in San Diego in this election. We found the condo we’re buying the last day to register, and though we made an offer and it was accepted same day, there was no way we could legally register until the usual mountain of paperwork got done. At least my son and many of his friends are working hard to help elect Alvarez.

    Mr S won’t be changing his voter reg to California until after he can vote for Alison Lundergan Grimes against (spits) Mitch McConnell (spits). We’ve voted against Mitch 5 or 6 times already. This time, just maybe…

  28. 28.

    PsiFighter37

    Gotta fight hard for the Senate in 2014. To me, this means gunning hard for the 2 races (Georgia and Kentucky) where we have a not-impossible shot of stealing a seat from the Republicans. In terms of defense, I would write off SD and very nearly AR and WV (I don’t think Pryor has a shot, especially compared to someone who is reasonably young and charismatic like Cotton. As for WV, Capito Moore has all the name recognition, and while Tennant is as good a recruit as we can get, I don’t think it will be close) but fight like hell in the rest of our red states. Landrieu has made a name for herself winning tough, close races her entire career, and I think Begich is well-positioned to hold on no matter who he faces (and he has name rec). Hagan really needs to step up her game, though (this should be like shooting barrel in a fish – just point to what is going on at the state leg level and say that is what will happen federally), and Walsh needs to get up and running quickly. Democrats know how to win in Montana, so even though Daines is a nominally strong opponent (wasn’t Rehberg, too?), this is winnable.

    It will help us immensely if we can hold the Senate for the last 2 years of Obama’s presidency, because we should be able to pick off very winnable seats in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New Hampshire in a presidential year.

  29. 29.

    Hungry Joe

    @SectionH: After Mr. S votes against (spits) Mitch McConnell (spits) one more time, he (and you) will have plenty of chances to vote against (spits) the San Diego GOP machine (spits). San Diego turned just barely blue a few years ago, and the county is now (even more just barely) blue, so you’ve arrived at a good time.

    A good primer is “Under the Perfect Sun: The San Diego Tourists Never See” (Nation Books), a thorough, well-researched history of the city’s economic and labor history, by Jim Miller and Kelly Mayhew — local city college professors and (full disclosure) friends of mine, and Mike Davis.

    It’s a harrowing book. Emma Goldman, for example, was run out of town, and her partner was literally tarred and feathered and dumped out in the middle of nowhere; it broke his spirit and his health.

  33. 33.

    Suffern ACE

    @Roger Moore: or they’re going to go for Citizen’s United 2, in which the distinction between donors and campaigns completely disappears for the wealthy, while anyone else is gagged.

  34. 34.

    Yatsuno

    @SectionH: I’m actually quietly optimistic about Grimes’ chances here. She has run a pretty decent campaign with no serious challengers and Yertle has Bevin breathing down is neck. That race could get fun. Put that against Nunn in Georgia and it gets REALLY interesting.

  42. 42.

    jibeaux

    @GregB: My favorite understatement from that story is

    “The market may be realizing that there are issues which are specific to these forms of currencies.”

    and my favorite overstatement is

    The bitcoin in recent months started to gain wider acceptance, with Overstock.com and the Sacramento Kings basketball team both saying they would begin to accept the currency.

  43. 43.

    divF

    @Hungry Joe:

    Hi, Hungry –

    If you’re still listening, good luck tomorrow.

    The Mike Davis who coauthored this book is the author of two great politico-sociological studies of Southern California, “City of Quartz” and “Ecology of Fear”. I’ll have to take a look at this book on San Diego, as well.

  44. 44.

    JoyfulA

    In Pennsylvania, the state Democratic committee met over the weekend and declined to endorse, which is great. I believe in open primaries and haven’t made up my mind on which of the seven candidates I want to replace Tom Corbett as governor. The one antichoice Dem dropped out last week.

    Nothing on for the Senate here until 2016.

  47. 47.

    SectionH

    @Hungry Joe: and @divF: thanks for the book recs. I’ll look for them. My son and husband, both serious political junkies, will be interested too.

    Quick anecdote, though the thread is probably dead: we were having a moving sale this past weekend, and Lo and Behold! who should come to the door but our current mayor, Sam Abed, who is rumored to be Joe Arpaio’s BFF. Asking politely for our votes. That’s a new one on me. I was in no position to explain what I really would like to see in a mayor of Escondido, and didn’t bother to tell him we’re out of here next week, but when I come up for air, I will be interested to see how that race is shaking out.

    And yes, we should have another SD meet up.

  48. 48.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @SectionH: When I was a young Cub Scout inthe Chicago suburbs in the ’70s (let’s call it ’74-’75ish), IL Governor Dan Walker swanned into one of our events. I was the first person he greeted. He stuck out his hand at the approximately 10 y/o me and boomed, “Hi, I am Dan Walker.” While not an introvert, I can be a bit reserved – at ten, this was rather stunning ( he came, of course, came with reporters and photogs). I managed to say, “I am Omnes Omnibus” and shook his hand – then adults showed up.

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