The Not So Great Wizard of Oz

Since Tuesday’s Special Primary Election for San Diego Mayor there are money people and political consultants are trying to really make a determination on the final outcome of the general election.  Let’s just put it out there what the backers of San Diego City Councilmember Kevin Faulconer and the Democrats who didn’t think San Diego City Councilmember David Alvarez could come in 2nd and former California State Assemblymember Nathan Fletcher was the most viable candidate:

1. Faulconer will have the money to run an ground, mail, television and radio campaign;
2. Faulconer will have a unified and funded Independent Expenditure to help carry his message, while suppress Alvarez voters;
3. Republican voters will turn out in large numbers, even in a special election;
4. Decline to State voters will swing more heavily towards the fiscal, political moderate and veteran San Diego City Councilmember message;
5. Former California State Assemblymember Nathan Fletcher voters will not turn towards Alvarez, but either stay home or in large vote for Faulconer;
6. The long written about Latino voting block will not come out in the special election to support Alvarez;
7. Alvarez will have a unified and funded Independent Expenditure to help carry his message like they did in the primary, let alone in a bigger capacity;
8. Alvarez will not be able to wage a well-funded campaign, because he will not attract the donors who gave to Fletcher;

There is even more, but let’s call it what it is BS!  The truth is Faulconer could lose this election, because when you pull back the curtain of this story people are circulating around, it is just coming from some bald man yelling at the top of his lungs into a microphone and he has a gap in his teeth with a Swedish accent.

The real truth is we don’t know yet whether Fletcher voters or donors come on board for Alvarez or whether the highly successful labor IE will muster up the funds to run another effective campaign.  Latinos could still out preform for their first Latino mayor, donors that sat out between Fletcher and Alvarez could now jump in, but we do know these points:

1. Faulconer was a councilmember that was the smartest of his ilk (except former San Diego City Councilmember Carl DeMaio) on council, and that is not saying much;
2. Faulconer was never a leader, before now Interim Mayor Todd Gloria was selected as Council President and decided to work with him, because everything the Republicans did was orchestrated by former San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, DeMaio or the rabid and foam seething Associated General Contractors with the Lincoln Club;
3. Faulconer was a lobbyist who would never release his entire client list and it will come back to bite him;
4. Faulconer has no major successes on city council since his 2006 election and everything he highlights was again really lead by the people or organizations listed in number two;
5. Faulconer supported developers every time over community, except when it was his own neighborhood
6. As with Fletcher and the above points, Faulconer’s numbers in the primary were based off name identity build up, because Faulconer has not yet had his less detractive qualities highlighted or his positives tested to the voters;

I can go into a number of other items, but the biggest real reason Faulconer could lose is his choice of consultant, Duane Dichiara.  Here you have a failed consultant who is like a broken clock, only correct twice a day.  He has a few major wins, but most of his wins are in pure Republican districts, which he gets a candidate the Republican Party faithful get behind and wins.  His first major win was Faulconer’s special election, then San Diego City Councilmember Lori Zapf and Scott Sherman, ding dong and done.

In the end, I don’t know the final election result yet, no one does, but if the Democratic Party, labor, the activist base and donors stand with Alvarez, and then he has a real serious chance to win.  We have a chance to elect a native son, first Latino, a Summa Cum Laude SDSU graduate, a person focused on every neighborhood and a real pull yourself up from boot strap kind of person that shares the super-majority of San Diego residents policies.