Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Sacramento’s Heavy Hand?

In MySpace, a profile called Dump Arabo appeared with rainbow flags, a picture of men together, and other homosexual themes.

This site is in response to an incident where Auday Arabo, on behalf of his grocers association, apologizes for Miller’s sponsorship of a gay function in the Bay Area.

Whether true or not, I was struck by the use of a MySpace profile to hit a candidate in the primary. The fingerprints seem to point in the direction of Sacramento and here are my reasons:
The Arlie Ricasa’s campaign wouldn’t waste its time trying to tear down Arabo and Marty Block’s people are too establishment to think in this direction, at least in San Diego. Because in the 78th, the “gay issue” only really moves votes among conservative to moderate African Americans who, due to demographics, are falling as a voting bloc. The new voters, the new homeowners, and the recent immigrants are too much of a “wild card” to bet on as votes in the district so you go with what you know. It saves on money and manpower.

This is not how we San Diegans would call it, but this is how Sacramento would. If all you know of the 78th is what you read as far as registration goes, then you have misjudged the district and, lets be honest, Sacramento has done this hat trick too often to be an “accident” every time.

If it turns out that the hit is false, the LGBT community may otherwise look at Arabo as a viable option because he was attacked.

And the use of the Bronski Beat song? I mean, come on! That smells of someone called in to be stereotypical rather than real.

Which gets me back to MySpace. Unless you’re twelve, why would you even go there? Teens can’t vote. And the 78th isn’t know for being a hub of wireless Internet connections. Again, another example of how little is known about voters in the 78th and the sad attempts to manipulate the voters there.

Cross-posted at Calitics.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Marty may be too establishment, but I heard he hired Ross communications as his consulting firm. Richie Ross, along with being very good at traditional campaign mail, is ruthless. I would guess he is not exactly shy about venturing into new forms of communication to hit a candidate.

Anonymous said...

This thing is hilarious! If you've been watching the Block/Arabo/Ricassa race you've gotten every web tactic imaginable.

At least this one has a specific potential outcome: it asks for Auday's endorsers to drop their support. If this isn't a hoax, then that could happen.

As for the 12 year old MySpace phenomenon, that doesn't seem to be true. Just having the San Diego Chapters of NOW and Equality California sign on is a big deal.

Lance Bass? That may be the 12 year old effect.

Anonymous said...

Don't be so quick to assume that an Arlie Ricassa supporter wouldn't behind this. Note that three of the endorsers they are trying to get to switch are asian, and the only non-asian is a woman.

Anonymous said...

Democrats better wise up quick! This guy Auday is an insanely bad candidate. While this particular hit is on gay rights, don't forget his re-registration anniversary last week, or the tobacco check picture from a month ago, or his liquor and gambling finance report earlier in the year. That's not even touching the fact that he is a carpetbagger.

Auday can't win. But he can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars from his liquor store buddies to get all the other Democrats muddy. That could be his going away present to the Republicans.

Who cares who did this? What progressives need to do is get Auday out of the primary election. Otherwise he will give the Republicans exactly what they want - a bloody nominee who has had to expend all their money fighting against other Democrats and is weakened by a storm of negative campaigning.

If we don't get Auday out of this race and get behind one candidate quickly, we won't see this district in Democratic hands until 2014, or later.

(funny that the code I have to type in below is imbcl. Even my computer has heard of Auday!)

Anonymous said...

Auday's campaign makes it very public that he is being attacked by the right, and "by other Democrats" {DFA 11/7}

I have to say I think at this point the other two canididate are too focused on getting their message out to even think about Auday. Not yet anyway.

I'm not saying the following is the case, but it wouldn't surprise me if this was something dreamed up by an overly zealous Arabo supporter.

Read the site, look at the images and .. .well, it makes me think of a comment to this very blog that was posted sometime after Block got the San Diego Democratic Club endoresement by what seemed like an Arabo supporter wherein they called the SDDC a "gay club masquerading as a democratic club"

I'm just sayin'.

Anonymous said...

This site is filled with people from the SDSU gay clubs which there are many on campus. if you look all the regulars are there. Someone probably started it by just adding 50 of their friends.

Give it a week and nobody will remember it.

Anonymous said...

The reason the Auday is being hit by the republicans is because he is a moderate and they don't want to fight him in the general.

Their is a huge DTS base in the district and they will swing the election. Marty Block is what the Republicans want IE. Vince Hall vs Shirley Horton

I will love to see Marty take the 78th but I dont think he has the profile for this seat. We need to run smart races and Auday has a better chance.

Anonymous said...

I don't think so.

Arabo has too much baggage for a Democrat, and no support from the right. I think he would lose as a carpet bagger easily.

Block, on the other hand, has won various campaigns within that district. Granted they may be for educational positions, but he's proven he can speak the speak of that district.

Anonymous said...

The carpetbagger thing isn't that powerful in legislative elections. With gerrymandering of districts they don't make sense anyway. So, someone from the city of San Diego is just as likely to vote for someone from El Cajon as from Chula Vista.

I have talked to many Republicans who can't stand Auday because he bailed on their party once he found out he didn't have the internal political support to run. The Young Republicans in particular had been close to Auday because he was giving them lots of beer and funding for their clubs. Then he changes parties? That is the kind of thing that makes people not like you.

On top of these process type issues (where he lives, what party he belongs to) there are the more damaging policy alignments that will be the end of him.

- The Anti-Tobacco activists are insanely mad because he tried suing them a few years ago and has worked for an association that defends stores that sell tobacco to minors. (the picture of him taking a check from tobacco is campaign gold!)

- The Democratic Party establishment has been passing out Auday's contributions to Bilbray and the Lincoln club like it's halloween candy. This will be a huge deal to partisan voters in a low turnout election.

- The LGBT Community has now learned about his call for Miller Beer to stop supporting the Folsom St Fair because it offended their church and values.

No matter who causes the fatal blow, there is no way in the world that Auday Arabo becomes a member of the legislature.

Do Democrats win this seat back? That will be entirely dependent on if they can beat Arabo before the Republicans do.

Anonymous said...

HA! HA!

This has been a bad week for the little twirp! When these groups sign on to an effort to dump him, that is a big deal.

Stonewall Young Democrats
Marriage Equality USA
NOW @ SDSU
San Diego County Young Democrats
The SD LGBT Center's Marriage Equality Project
San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council
ACLU

Will be interesting to see how John Chiang in particular responds to this. These are the same groups that gave him his upset victory in the 06 Democratic Primary.

Anthony Saavedra said...

The Labor Council has not "signed on to an effort to dump him." Our MySpace friendship was requested by the group unsolicited. We do not know who created the page, or any more information than anyone else on this site.

Like any other person or group, the Labor Council will accept anyone who requests friendship in an effort to reach as many people as possible. If you look through our friends list, you will see several candidates (many that are in the same race) who are friends.

Our endorsement of any candidate will come after our process is complete.

Anonymous said...

We are letting the Republicans dictate the agenda.

Why are the republicans so interested in taking out Auday?

Because he bought them beer? Please let's not be fools. They have alternative agenda and we are allowing them to divide our party.

Anonymous said...

Maybe OUR Party needs to be divided from anti-gay, pro-tobacco, carpetbagging former Republicans!

Ricasa or Block would be better than him, but as pointed out before, nobody wins if Auday gets to spend a million dollars pummelling them in the primary.

Anonymous said...

Dems,

I am very disappointed that our party is being divided. We should be happy to be bringing in more people to our party, but all I hear is negativity. Arabo probably left the Rep party because it is a party of exclusion, and instead of our party being what we are known for as a party of inclusion, we keep attacking people for changing parties.

Anonymous said...

Thank you Auday (or representative) for your comments. Very much parallels your DFA comments last week.

(I know you're reading this Auday because you don't stop talking about the blogs. We do actually have the same friends.)

Democratic Unity is important. And we should be including people in our party. However, we should also work to cleave from our ranks those who wish to represent the Party and act so offensively against our platform and values.

There is a party for people who are offended by homosexuals, "share values" with tobacco companies, take hundreds of thousands of dollars from the alcohol industry and kowtow to the conservative religious right.

They are Republicans, and you should know that given you were one less than a year ago.

Sorry Auday. You're a nice guy who doesn't deserve to be attacked for what you believe, but you've gotten yourself into this mess. I have to believe it is just going to keep getting worse.

I really feel bad, but you've got to figure out another life plan for yourself - serving in the Assembly is not going to happen. You have a lot to give, and need to focus it somewhere else.