Obama Jinxed by Alameda Daily News?

Was Obama jinxed by Don Roberts’ recommendation?

Monday, February 4, 2008

Alameda Daily News Endorses Barack Obama

Barack Obama is intelligent, articulate, innovative and has the best leadership qualities of all of the candidates for the President of the United States of America. He offers America the best chance for bi-partisan leadership. America will be a better place with President Obama. Please vote for Barack Obama for President.

Don Roberts is now in the very distinguished company of The Kennedys (Ted Inc), Maria Shriver, Oprah Winfrey and John Kerry! Who would’ve thunk this was possible …

/snark

2008 Elections: Follow the money

Rest assured, this isn’t about any nefarious (perceived or otherwise) goings-on anywhere in Alameda With the 2008 Presidential election scene getting more intense by the day, here’s a quick link (and another) to keep track of which candidates are attracting contributions from fellow Alamedans.

Election’s Over!

The first Tuesday in November started off with overcast skies and dense fog. After months of passionate debate on the merits/demerits of each candidate, it was finally showtime (with the advent of absentee ballots, it was well-past showtime for many of the early voters; but it makes for a compelling story, nevertheless).

Any expectations of a close fight were belied by the early returns that showed Johnson, Tam and Matarrese staking a sizeable lead over the opponents. The relative percentages did not change much over the course of the night resulting in a landslide victory for the incumbents (and one new comer). Johnson’s tally (10349) was nearly double that of DeHaan’s (5627). while Tam and Matarrese’s aggregate (15225) was significantly higher than the Slate’s candidates (8761).

Clearly, a vast majority of Alamedans are happy for the most part with the current state of the city and this is a mandate for the city council to continue working on the improvements that have been set in motion. The results also show a complete repudiation of the fear mongering tactics and the many insensitive/inaccurate remarks from some of the candidates.

Where do we go from here? With the election’s over, now it’s time to tackle the realities!

As with any election, there are bound to be winners and losers. Regardless of whose candidates ended up where, it is in the community’s best interests to overlook the election rhetoric/fringe extremes and seek a common ground that will benefit all of Alameda. We chose to make our homes here for good reason and therefore have a vested interest in the common ground.

Ubuntu

What’s ubuntu you ask? I will get to it in a little while, but set your minds at ease: I am not referring to anything even remotely geeky (like Linux, for instance)

Barbara has a good point about sustaining the momentum generated by the active participation on the various blogs. It is quite refreshing to see a counter viewpoint to the erstwhile vocal minority that almost bordered on being a clique. As latent prejudices surface during this election runup, it is perhaps worth recalling what Clinton said recently during his address to the Labor Party:

Society is important because of Ubuntu. If we were the most beautiful, the most intelligent, the most wealthy, the most powerful person - and then found all of a sudden that we were alone on the planet, it wouldn’t amount to a hill of beans.

In proving as to why there’s nobody quite like good ol’ Bill, he was simply referring to the African ideology of “ubuntu” which simply states “I am because you are” i.e: individuals need other people to be fulfilled.

Alameda will still be around after November 7th, but it will take more than an election cycle to eliminate the prejudices that are slowly percolating to the surface.

Jean Sweeney: Is it apology time yet?

It looks like Jean Sweeney has veered slightly off-track on a few occasions after her commendable efforts in securing the Alameda Beltline property. The first was when she raised unsubstantiated accusations that the City intended to sell the Beltline property to the highest bidder, only to retract the accusations later in a public apology. Good for you, Jean!

Evidently, that didn’t deter Jean from going off the deep end again! In “Unsubstantiated Accusations, Part Deux”, she states:

Recently at the car show on Park Street, I stopped in an eatery with my campaign shirt on and was told by the proprietor that his business is being audited by the City of Alameda because he had a Doug de Haan sign in his window.

Evidently that is not the only business that is being audited for the same reason.

I protest my tax money being spent to carry out dirty politics.

Unfortunately (for Jean), Lauren quickly relegated this accusation to a storm in a tea cup and another addition to a long list of “we must be in an election cycle to have these half baked conspiracy theories sprout like wild-flowers” (wow, did that sentence have one metaphor too many or what?

Jean, merci beaucoup, muchas gracias, grazie for your pioneering work on the Beltine property dispute. We can only hope that you will continue to undertake such meticulous fact checking even when you have a vested interest in the outcome!

Pinocchio to Slate: I want my nose back!

Thanks to John Knox White, we can now confirm that Beverly Johnson’s total expenditure during the 2002 elections was approx $36k. This is a far cry from the unsubstantiated rumor being peddled by David Howard that Johnson raised over $100k. To put this in further context, Pat Bail spent more than $100k of her own money during the 2004 elections. As Michael Krueger points out, this was nearly 10x (that’s right: 10 times!) many, many more than ten times the size of the average campaign donation to Johnson. That Pat Bail went on to join the long list of people (anybody remember Michael Huffington?) who failed in their attempt to buy an election is another story.

Now, you have to ask yourself why are Slate supporters spreading these unsubstantiated rumors? Could this be a sign of desperation that their doomsday scenarios are not reasonating with the public at large?

Inquiring minds want to know.

(Update: Added link to Alameda Journal article documenting Pat Bail’s 2004 campaign finances. Thanks to Michael K.)

Yes on Proposition 89

We’ve all seen the corrosive impact of Jack Abramoff. Proposition 89 seeks to reduce the power of lobbyists and special interests by imposing strict contribution limits coupled with stringent disclosure and enforcement regulations.

The “Yes on Prop 89″ folks have a catchy video. I might actually start watching campaign ads, if they had more of these …

Featuring: California Nurses, “About time for 89″

It’s about time for Prop. 89
What’s goin’ on in Sac Town is blowin’ my mind
“Big Boys Club” by grand design
Are leaving Californians far behind
Cause in Sac Town - you have to pay to play
Thanks for your vote but you just can’t stay
All you big money boys with all the big green
Take a message: it’s time to come clean

Politicians and big money power
Are tucked away in an ivory tower
Called the Capitol - they got it up for sale
But they’re breakin’ the law and goin’ to jail
Political corruption is on the rise
Donations are comin’ in super-size
Californians need a little bit of love
But we can’t get in to the “Big Boys Club”
Can’t get health if you don’t have wealth
Can’t fix schools if we don’t have tools
Can’t afford the gas, to fill up the tank
Big Boys are takin’ us to the bank
Proposition 89 is real reform
The corporations hate it like a lover’s scorn
They want freedom - to buy politicians
Of course they would rather keep with tradition

The Paranoid Style comes to Alameda

Paul Krugman’s column in yesterday’s NYT was on the ascendancy of the paranoid style in American politics.

Richard Hofstadter’s essay introducing the term “paranoid style” was inspired by his observations of the radical right-wingers who seized control of the Republican Party in 1964. Today, the movement that nominated Barry Goldwater controls both Congress and the White House.

As a result, political paranoia — the “sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy” Hofstadter described — has gone mainstream. To read Hofstadter’s essay today is to be struck by the extent to which he seems to be describing the state of mind not of a lunatic fringe, but of key figures in our political and media establishment.

The “paranoid spokesman,” wrote Hofstadter, sees things “in apocalyptic terms. He is always manning the barricades of civilization.”

See any similarities between Hofstadter’s observations and the rampant innuendo and conspiracy theories that the Slate supporters often resort to? Unfortunately (for the Slate), the truth does catch up (as always!).

Journal Editorial: Racism Still in Alameda

As we’ve seen in the recent debates over Measure A and the upcoming elections, some of the “Slate” candidates have a tendency to resort to racist and culturally insensitive comments (perhaps indavertently in one case and more blatant in the other) . These incidents have also been chronicled on A Progressive Alamedan’s blog.

It appears that the small vocal minority of NIMBY Alamedans who remain opposed to any new development are taking their cue from these candidates, as witnessed by their remarks at City Council meetings:

If we build (fill in the blank) it will attract “those people” or the “riff-raff” or, when really emboldened, “those folks from Oakland.”

The Journal’s Editorial goes on to say:

Someone once observed that hidden just past the shiny SUVs, the perfectly manicured lawns and the precisely restored Victorians, Alameda is home to an old-school class of ignorant hillbillies. Incidents such as the ones noted above only feed that stereotype.

So when we choose our representatives to the City Council this Nov. 7 or when we engage in public debate about a proposed development, we should do so with clear minds about the reality of the world we live in and how damaging racist speech — subtle or gross — can be.

Enough said. The facts and actions of the Slate candidates speak for themselves!

A clown for Alameda Mayor?

And even his sister will not vote for him, as reported in Yahoo News:

Kenneth Kahn, 41, a professional joker known as “Kenny the Clown,” admits he’s running a long-shot campaign for City Hall’s top spot. Kahn has not previously run for an elected position and has never sat on a public board.

“People ask me, ‘Do we really want to elect a clown for mayor of the city?’” he said. “I say, ‘That’s an excellent question.’”

Kahn’s mother, Barbara, said her son doesn’t have a chance, and Sylvia Kahn, a teacher, said her brother’s candidacy is a “mockery of our system.”

btw, this was #9 in Yahoo’s Most Popular News Stories today!