Vargas Victory Speech

From Capitol Alert:

"The time has come to take a stand -- to blaze a bold new trail and once again make California the state of possibilities.


"I know we can do this if we work together.


"As one of 10 children, born and raised on a small farm, I leaned from my parents at a young age that anything is possible and that no dream is too big if you work hard to achieve it...


"As your senator, I will passionately promote policies that reflect a vision for the future in which we measure our progress not merely in the quantity of our goods but in the quality of our lives - the purity of the air we breathe and the water we drink; the safety of our streets and the excellence of our schools and healthcare system.


"Thank you once again for joining me in this cause. Let's win in November and turn California around."

Councilmember Donna Frye and Former Candidate Steve Hadley Announce Endorsement of Howard Wayne

July 1, 2010


(San Diego, CA). District 6 Councilmember Donna Frye and her Chief of Staff, Steve Hadley, a former District 6 candidate, announced today that they are endorsing Howard Wayne to replace Frye on the council.

“We have a very clear choice in this race,” said Frye. “Howard is a long-time member of this community, a Deputy Attorney General and a legislator who has already proven his commitment to us. Lorie Zapf, in contrast, has shown herself to be intolerant and to lack the kind of financial management skills it takes to run a large City.”

Steve Hadley also expressed confidence in Howard Wayne and concern about the direction Zapf might take the City. “This is a critical time for San Diego,” he said. “We can’t afford any big mistakes in who we elect.”

Howard Wayne is running on a platform of improving City services through economic improvement, better fiscal management and pension reform.

Howard Wayne has served the public throughout his professional career as a San Diego area California State Assembly Member and as a California Deputy Attorney General. A San Diegan since early childhood, Howard attended Marvin Elementary School, Lewis Junior High School, Hoover High School, San Diego State University, and University of San Diego. He has lived in San Diego Council District 6 neighborhoods for 38 years.

The Problem with Better Courts Now

This year, a group called “Better Courts Now" put up four candidates to challenge sitting judges on the California Superior Court in San Diego. The challengers claim to be running to impose what they consider “Christian values” on the courts. An AP story reported one of the challengers claimed that “God has called upon us to do this only with the judiciary.”

The incumbent judges all won handily against these challenges.

I recently debated a supporter of Better Courts Now on a local morning news show.The approach of Better Courts Now, to impose a specific religious perspective on judicial elections, seems inappropriate to many observers. It’s unsettling to people of faith, myself included.

But why? In most elections for public office, we usually tolerate interest groups jockeying for influence. It’s a part of our pluralistic democracy. It’s just politics.

I accept that anything with an election is inherently political. But I do not believe that just because something’s inherently political, then every political act within it is fair game.

There are some campaign tactics that are inappropriate, even if they’re entirely legal under the system. For example, we object strongly to race-baiting, or spreading salacious and false rumors about candidates. Campaigns may be allowed to do so, but they still shouldn’t do so.

Similarly, it’s inappropriate for judicial candidates to assert that they’ll impose specific views on the administration of justice (religious or otherwise). The office is intended to be impartial and fair-minded.

The problem with Better Courts Now is that they are trying to bring in a specific narrow set of values to an office that is supposed to be neutral. Sure, judges are human beings, and they carry the same biases and weaknesses as all of us. But a judge has an obligation to strive for impartiality. Neutrality may ultimately be a fiction, but it’s a useful fiction.

Better Courts Now chucks the idea of impartiality out the window. The whole basis of their campaign, to impose a set of values on a body of neutral arbiters, is antithetical to the function of a judge. Voters are appropriately left to wonder who are these candidates running for judge, who so fundamentally misunderstand the very nature of the offices they seek.

The supporters of Better Courts Now also make the incongruous claim that judges who apply their particular set of religious and social values, are better able to render impartial legal decisions. This idea is inconsistent, if not incoherent.

A judicial activist is a judge that allows their own set of values to supersede other more legitimate legal policies. In the same breath, Better Courts Now claims they will prevent the imposition of personal values in the administration of justice, by imposing personal values in the administration of justice.

Voters don’t like this kind of double dealing, and they appropriately rejected it.

One week left: Predictions

Things always change the last week before the election. Today, this is where I see things:

San Diego City Council District 2 & 4 - Yawn
Faulconer and Young win. Finucane becomes the front-runner four years from now in D2.


San Diego City Council District 6 - Popcorn!
The egos of Kvaric and Sudberry have chained them to the flawed candidacy of Zapf. Thanks to the "gift" of $20K from the SD Republican Party, the Lincoln Club's oversized hit pieces and this being a Republican leaning primary, in spite of the candidate, Zapf gets dragged across the finish line into the runoff.

Wayne makes the runoff to take out face Zapf. With Labor focused in Chula Vista and the local Dem party tilting at the windmill that is the 4th Supervisorial seat, Wayne gets in the old-fashioned way; he worked at it. His relentless campaign should grab enough of the electorate to make it.

Hadley has the Donna-heads on his side but that's it. They will deny Wayne the outright win but will make it easier for him to unify the party in the fall. Hadley's natural volunteer base has fled for Whitburn and, as of this writing, his campaign has not shown much of a pulse since their SDSU interns graduated.

Tran has loaned herself $20K but it remains to be seen how she will apply this to campaign (more signs?). This is her best chance to make the runoff: five candidates and a wounded Republican frontrunner reduce the number of votes needed. It could happen.

Huckabone may receive more than single digits. He has been quiet during the Zapf brouhaha which implies that he is being the good soldier for a future shot at office. Keep your eye on this guy. With some direction and money, he could be dangerous.


San Diego City Council District 8 - Kettlecorn!
D8 is the the kind of place where the total votes garnered by the 3rd or 4th place finisher in D6 could win outright due to the low turnout numbers. Polls have been done showing Inzunza with a solid lead but his runoff opponent remains unknown. One poll has BD Howard as number two and in another it's Alvarez. UFCW launched a hit on BD but it may result in elevating Nick to an outright victory. With Felipe and Ben Hueso sharing resources and people, it appears unlikely that any prediction for the second spot can be credible.

What I will say is that he who has the better ground game will win.


State Assembly District 79 - Tequila poppers!
Conventional wisdom (the same wisdom that gave Peters the nod over Aguirre, Morrow a chance a against Sanders, etc) gives this to Hueso but he's never had to run against a class warrior like Quinones and an experienced veteran like Doyle. The Hueso camp has cobbled together an operation in the last month to compete with the other two which have been in operation for months.

It appears that he didn't realize he had to run a real campaign until May rolled around. Word on the street is that Hueso is planning a hit involving comments from some of Quinones's fellow boardmembers. Hueso also doesn't acknowledge Doyle probably because Doyle is set to take a chunk out of the votes that would be going to Hueso.

Either way, this race is turning into a streetfight between Ben and Pearl. I would have given this to Hueso but his inability to take the race seriously until the last minute may cost him. It will be close.


Prop G Chula Vista - Jaggersahots!
Talk about streetfights and close results. This will be decided by last minute voters and whichever side can yank people out who care about this in June. Chula Vistans have been flooded in the mail and on TV (watched MSNBC or the History Channel recently?). Labor needs to win this. Too close to call.


State Senate 40 - Vodka!
After sending and receiving Molotov cocktails, fire-bombs, and other incendiaries at eachother for months, the Salas and Vargas campaigns will reap the fruits of their labors. Will the insurance industry buy their seat for Vargas? Will Salas be able to raise her head to fight another day? Elements of this race had Spy-vs-Spy qualities.
Winner wins by 2-3 percentages.


Congressional District 50 - Peanuts
Emblem and Busby have been locking horns for over a year now. Emblem is running with Labor in an area where Labor is not popular. Busby gets it on name ID.


Extra! Republican Primary Congressional District 53 - Pretzls
This has been a fun one to watch! Fink gets it because she has good signs and is nowhere near as batty as her opponents.

SDUT picks up on Zapf mess

It's finally here:

Council candidate Zapf defaults on loan

Blog of San Diego picks up Zapf's "strategic fraud"

Blogger Pat Flannery tears apart Zapf's case.

Would Lorie Zapf bring "strategic fraud" to City Council?

And just where is the UT on this?

D6: Tran hits Zapf over Home Default

As the SDUT ignores the story about Lorie Zapf's inability to maintain financial discipline at home, Channel 10 News has picked up on it with quote from Kim Tran, one of her opponents and fellow Republican:

Regardless, Tran is questioning her opponent's judgment, especially since Zapf is campaigning on promises to bring fiscal responsibility, balance the budget and bring common sense back to City Hall.

"You spend the money you don't have," said Tran.

Check out the story here.

Zapf news blackout at the UT?

From the Voice of San Diego this weekend:

Unpaid Debt of the Week: If you're running for City Council on a platform of fiscal responsibility, it can't help your case to default on your mortgage. But will CityBeat's revelation about the tangled mortgage situation of Lorie Zapf, a leading candidate for City Council, actually damage her campaign? CityBeat's readership is small, so it may depend on whether bigger local media like the U-T jump on the story and keep it alive. Or her rivals could spread the news themselves.

I think the UT will ignore the story or run it when it can be buried with the rest of the campaign reporting. They did endorse her and it would be a poor reflection on the UT if they didn't research her background. After all, it is a matter of public record.

Zapf can't make ends meet

I don't like going personal in campaigns unless an element of the person's identification is used as a pillar of their campaign. Then it is fair game.

Lorie Zapf is running as a successful business-woman who is all about fiscal discipline.

From yesterday's CityBeat:

Publicly, Lorie Zapf is campaigning for San Diego City Council on a platform of fiscal responsibility. Privately, however, the Zapf family has defaulted on a loan that could result in the foreclosure of their home.

As of March 30, 2010, Lorie and Eric Zapf were six months behind in payments on a $230,000 line of credit, according to a Notice of Default (NOD) that Wells Fargo filed with the San Diego County Recorder’s Office. It’s the second loan the Zapfs have taken out using the house as collateral.

And there's more. Read the article.

Running for office is never easy but you should make sure you have a home to go back to before setting out on such a life-altering journey. Especially with a family.

DeMaio, Sudberry, and Krvaric really know how to pick their candidates.

District 6 for Sale!

District 6 for Sale!


Republicans trying to buy, hijack, or steal elections is nothing new.
This from today’s UT:


A federal appeals court has lifted a ban placed on political party donations in the city of San Diego ahead of the June 8 election, which could open the door to unlimited party contributions to City Council candidates in the next few weeks.


The ruling is the latest in a lawsuit filed by the county Republican Party and others to change the city’s campaign finance laws, which they say are restrictive and infringe on free-speech rights.




Now the Republicans can do what their own candidates can’t seem to do for themselves: raise money. The more insidious side is now coordination between the parties and campaigns can go forth without regard to spending limits. Who benefits?


Made explicit in the Voice of San Diego:




It is clear who benefits the most from the decision.


Businesswoman Lorie Zapf, the endorsed Republican candidate vying to replace termed-out District 6 City Councilwoman Donna Frye, will receive a $20,000 contribution from the Republican Party prior to the election, Republican Party Chairman Tony Krvaric said.


"That's the first thing on the docket," Krvaric said.


Zapf is locked in a five-way primary fight and has $27,000 less in cash on hand than the Democratic Party's endorsed candidate, former state Assemblyman Howard Wayne. Also in the race are Frye's chief of staff Steve Hadley, businessman Ryan Huckabone and paralegal Kim Tran. If no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the June vote, then the top two finishers will compete again in November.


Political observers widely see the District 6 race as the only one this election cycle that could change the 6-2 advantage Democrats currently hold on the City Council. District 6 includes the city's Mission Valley, Clairemont, Kearny Mesa, Serra Mesa and Linda Vista neighborhoods.


So now a woman who thinks homosexuality is a sin and that supporters of hers, like Demaio, shouldn’t be in public office will be able to have her ground and mail campaign paid for by the Republican Party because she can’t do it herself.


All I can say is that you get what you pay for. It’s obvious that Zapf crumples before Huckabone in person and has been depending on others to do her campaigning for her. Tran signs are everywhere and Zapf is fading. Enter the egos of Krvaric and Sudsburry who don’t like the idea of having their handpicked choice cut to ribbons because she is so inept at running for office. They need something to show people that they back up their boasts. If that means filing lawsuits to benefit the regional director for Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse in order to buy the seat for her, so be it.


I hope Wayne kicks their collective asses. They so deserve it.

STEINBERG RESPONSE TO GOVERNOR'S MAY REVISION

STEINBERG RESPONSE TO GOVERNOR'S MAY REVISION

(SACRAMENTO) – Senate President pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) made the following comments today in response to the Governor’s May Revise:

I could speak for a long time about the past and where to point the finger.

I could talk about sledgehammers, and automobiles and torn up credit cards.

I could talk about blowing up boxes.

I could talk about one of many silly metaphors.

But I will leave it at this: I am disappointed that the Governor has chosen to surrender.

That he sees California as unfixable and that he proposes a budget that kills the economy and harms so many.

It is a non-starter.

If God forbid this budget became a reality, California would be the only state in the union to not have a safety net for children.

Leadership is not about blaming others. It’s about finding solutions to tough problems to preserve the state and its people.

In their comments throughout the day the Governor’s representatives have described the cuts he proposes as quote “terrible.”

I believe him …but his actions say it would be more terrible to delay $2.1 billion in corporate tax breaks than to save children, the elderly, and the most vulnerable.

His actions say it is more terrible to impose a tax on oil profits than complete elimination of county mental health services and child care.

He appears to have decided that the solutions are too difficult to achieve so he will accept these “terrible” cuts.

We refuse to wave the white flag.

California’s elected leaders- including myself- and the governor and the others need to stand up.

Given the choice between enacting $6 billion in cuts to services for the elderly, children and the disabled, or delaying corporate tax breaks, I’m for delaying corporate tax breaks.

Given the choice between cutting education by nearly $3 billion or seeking revenues from oil companies extracting oil in California, I’m for getting revenues from oil companies profiting handsomely in this state.

But I want to go beyond I think what you expect here which is sort of the give and take.…

And [provide a] the recitation of our genuinely held beliefs and philosophy.

I want to state my perspective on the overall situation very clearly.

In my view—having now my tenth year in the legislature, second year as leader, having served on numerous budget conference committees—we have come to the end of trying to prop up this failed structure.

There is no more triage.

The status quo is unsustainable.

Our government is not structured to quickly and effectively respond to an economic crisis of this magnitude.

We are so balkanized that the people don’t know who collects the taxes and who provides the services.

Yes we need revenue, and we will fight for revenue, but not to prop up this outdated structure.

We must use this crisis now, not next year, not another report, not another study.

We need to bring government closer to the people.

The inside term is “realignment.”

What it means to the people of California is that we must take many of these state programs that otherwise may be decimated, and give them to the locals and the school districts. Give them restored revenue and the ability to raise revenue themselves.

This is not theory. This is not academic. This is not a luxury.

Those who say – “too difficult, too complicated”, I challenge you to do this:

Bring forward an alternative that balances the budget, preserves essential public investments, and does not rely on gimmicks.

Finally, I do want to respond to one thing that the Governor highlighted in his comments about the tax structure.

I think we all agree that California’s tax structure needs updating. But to say that we are living through this budget crisis solely or primarily because of the tax structure is just plain wrong.

The Legislative Analyst said clearly that if we had adopted the Parsky Commission’s recommendations . . . revenue would actually drop $10 billion.

[The] Governor has this theory about GDP that he keeps talking about, but this is what we know about California:

Personal consumption in California has fallen by the largest percentage since 1980.

Home prices have plunged dramatically since 2007 from an average of $484,000 a home to $250,000.

The share of corporate income tax paid in California has fallen by nearly half since 1981.

So this idea that if our tax structure had only kept up with some phantom robust growth in our economy over the last couple of years . . .

This country, the world, and this state are living through the most precipitous drop in revenue, and it would be precipitous no matter what tax system we had.

The real answer here is we must restructure and realign this outdated structure that we have here in California and we need to provide the revenue to the entity that is.

Stop Wall Street Favors

From the CDP:

Tell Congress to stop doing favors for Wall Street, and pass the Stop Tax-Haven Abuse Act now! The Stop Tax-Haven Abuse Act would crack down on the use of offshore tax-havens, the abuse of tax shelters by the super wealthy, and make it more difficult to avoid taxes by funneling money through foreign corporations.

Here's the video.

Someone save the sheep!

They need help!

SD 40: Thuggary doesn’t play

The race between Salas and Vargas has been soiled for the last month ever since Salas began launching hit pieces against Vargas for being a tool of the insurance industry.

The Vargas camp responded with physical intimidation. From CityBeat:


Vargas dispatched several campaign staffers to crash Salas’ press conference—emphasis on “crash.” A skirmish between the two staffs resulted in one Salas worker falling, banging his head and taking a trip to urgent care, which the Salas campaign characterized as hospitalization in a press release sent immediately after the event.


Where I come from, boys get physical as a schoolyard response to an out of control situation. Press conferences aren’t out of control but making them such becomes the story. In other write-ups of this incident, the scuffle has been the lead to the make point that Salas was trying to make.


And more:

The Vargas campaign retaliated by e-mailing CityBeat several documents, including flyers accusing Salas of being “hypocritical and deceitful” because, over the course of her political career, she has accepted $75,000 from CJAC members.



We’d like to point out that a) that’s still roughly a 10th of what CJAC has spent on Vargas just this cycle, b) accusing your opponent of being just as corporate as you are is not a winning argument and c) replacing the first S in Salas’ name with a dollar sign is just weak.


Salas wins this one. The Vargas campaign’s attempt to thwart a story only made it larger.

GOP loses court bid to fund S.D. candidates

By Craig Gustafson,
Thursday, April 29, 2010 at 12:08 a.m.

A federal judge has rejected a push by the county Republican Party that would have allowed political parties to give money to San Diego City Council candidates ahead of the June 8 election.

Instead, parties will have to wait until late June when a council-approved measure takes effect that sets a cap on such contributions at $1,000 per election.

The judge’s decision Wednesday is the latest ruling in a case that could have wide-ranging implications for how local elections are run in San Diego County and across the country. The case began in December when a group of Republicans, including the local party, sued the city claiming its restrictive campaign finance laws were infringing on their free speech rights. Specifically, they targeted the city’s $500 limit on individual contributions to candidates and restrictions on when candidates can begin collecting and spending money on a campaign.

U.S. District Judge Irma Gonzalez shelved three of the city’s laws in a Feb. 16 ruling, most notably its ban on political party contributions. But she also said parties couldn’t donate money until the city set an appropriate limit.

The council voted Tuesday for the $1,000 cap, based on a recommendation from the Ethics Commission, which monitors city campaigns and helps shape election laws.

The Republican Party accused the city of dragging its feet and asked Gonzalez to lift her stay so it could help candidates immediately.

In her ruling Wednesday, the judge said she didn’t feel compelled to rush the city’s process of adopting new laws, which requires a second reading and a 30-day waiting period before going into effect. That process likely won’t be finished until late June, well after the coming election.

Joe La Rue, the attorney leading the case against the city, said he was disappointed with the judge’s decision because it “eliminated the ability of the party to do what the judge said they ought to be able to do.” He said the judge made it clear in court Tuesday that she felt uncomfortable lifting the stay immediately, a decision that would have allowed parties to donate unlimited amounts of money to candidates because no cap exists.

La Rue said his clients haven’t decided whether to appeal the decision. The rest of the lawsuit’s campaign finance challenges are expected to go to trial later this year.

D6: Republican Desperation

From this week’s CityBeat:

Strategy session

The Republican Party of San Diego County revealed its campaign strategy for the San Diego City Council District 6 race in a document filed last week in federal court.

The filing—a declaration from the party’s treasurer, April Boling—says the party wants to double candidate Lorie Zapf’s war chest with a $20,000 contribution, which would put her on equal footing as “frontrunner” (Boling’s words, not ours) Howard Wayne, a Democratic former Assembly member. The GOP plans to pay workers to go door-to-door on Zapf’s behalf and use its offices to phone-bank for the candidate.


What does it mean when the endorsed candidate of the GOP Central Committee, the Lincoln Club, and the Associated Builders and Contractors of San Diego cannot compete financially with the leading Democrat in the race? Two things come to mind:

1) The Republicans in San Diego can’t raise the money for Zapf which betrays a weakness at the heart of “machine” they wish to be.

2) The Republicans in San Diego don’t want to raise the money for Zapf which makes sense if she says hateful things and then denies ever saying them even when presented with evidence. Or files lawsuits when she’s representative of a lawsuit abuse group.

Kudos to Team Wayne for putting the Republicans in a position that they have to go to court to do what they cannot do politically; raise money for their candidate. So much for being opposed to an activist judiciary.


All of that is contingent on whether the court lifts the city’s restriction on donations from parties to candidates. The court already knocked down the rule but left it temporarily effective until the City Council approves new rules allowing donations with caps. That hasn’t happened, but the council was set to discuss it after our deadline on April 27.


As of yesterday, the City Council placed a limit of $1,000 per party per candidate.


“We are 110 percent committed to Lorie Zapf and will vigorously support her in every way that we can,” County GOP chair Tony Krvaric tells CityBeat—a silly remark, really, since it implies that the Republicans will violate any limit set by the city by 10 percent.


Given the desperation of the local GOP, violations of limits by 10% may be too kind.

D6: Zapf’s and DeMaio’s Troubles with Numbers

This CityBeat article sums it up fairly well. Carl’s agenda only involves advancing Carl and he seems to have found an easy ally in Zapf who also is very eager to please.


Number soup

San Diego City Councilmember Carl DeMaio earns a fistful of turds this week for introducing Lorie Zapf, a candidate for the open District 6 seat, on stage at the Fiorina event.

These turds aren’t because DeMaio’s a gay Republican and Zapf has made statements in the past that homosexuals should be kept from public office. No, this time it’s another form of hypocrisy: DeMaio, who’s backing a ballot measure to revamp the city’s contract-bidding system, prides himself on his number-crunching integrity, and Zapf has proven she’s willing to bend tax data for political points.

Here’s a statistic Zapf blurted out when it was her turn at the podium:

“Did you know the average American will be paying more in taxes this year than we spend on food, clothing and shelter combined?”

No, we did not know that—because it’s bullshit.

Zapf’s claim is a bastardization of a claim made by The Tax Foundation, a think tank based in Washington, D.C. By its calculations, the government will collect more in tax revenue this year than Americans, collectively, will spend on those basic necessities. The fact is, this has been the case since 1976.

But, because America’s tax system is progressive—the more you make, the higher your tax rate—an average cannot be accurately extrapolated, and any attempt at correlation is bogus. One cannot simply take the total for the nation and apply it to the individual citizen. If you could, you’d also be able to make claims like:

“Did you know that the average Californian will spend 40 hours in a state prison this year?”

“Did you know that the average Californian is 12.5 percent Asian?”

“Did you know the average Californian produces six barrels of crude oil per year?”

The Tax Foundation itself suggests that the average individual’s tax burden is about 26 percent. That’s still lower than the 28.5 percent of earnings the U.S. Department of Labor estimates the average American family spends on clothing, food and shelter.

SDCDP to Charge ROV and SDGOP with Violations over Postage Subsidy

Official Election Mail to Include Campaign Material at Taxpayer Expense

The San Diego County Democratic Party will be reporting a violation to the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) over the plans of the County Registrar of Voters to insert partisan campaign literature into the official sample ballots it will be mailing to Republican voters next month.

An obscure section of the state Elections Code allows a county party organization to pay to include a fundraising letter in the voter guide sent to that party’s voters. However, the San Diego Republican Party is exceeding the scope of the law -– in a way unprecedented in California –- by placing a full-color page with its slate of endorsements directly into the booklet that will be mailed at taxpayer expense.

Through their County Counsel, the all-Republican County Board of Supervisors authorized the Republican insert –- which praises the “leadership” of Supervisors Ron Roberts and Bill Horn, who are up for election on the same ballot.

After a recent lawsuit supported by the Democratic Party, a San Diego judge forced the Republicans to alter the format of their campaign insert, but allowed them to include it because they are paying for the additional cost of printing. An appeal, while likely, will come too late to affect the printing schedule.

However, the court did not address a different law under FPPC Regulations (Sections 18420 and 18420.1) that requires government agencies paying for campaign-related communications to report the value of their expenditure as a contribution.

The Republican Party would have to pay about $50,000 in postage alone to send its slate mailer to the voters who will receive the insert. Instead, the Party and its campaigns won’t pay a dime in postage –- thus the benefit they will be receiving is a clearly reportable contribution from the Registrar of Voters.

“If the County government is now in the business of sending partisan propaganda under its official seal, it must register as a campaign committee and report those contributions under California law like any other committee,” said Jess Durfee, Chair of the San Diego County Democratic Party.

“The intrusion of partisan politics into government-funded activity is not only an affront to the other candidates and propositions that will be on the ballot in these nonpartisan races,” added Durfee. “It is an outrage to the voters and taxpayers of San Diego County and a sickening blow to the integrity of our election system. We will pursue every recourse until it is stopped.”

# # #

D6: Before the Storm

Anyone with a political crystal ball should look at this race. This race could be ground zero for a hyper-partisan war in the fall. The elements are all here for political Superbowl showdown; no incumbent, a possible pick up for the Republicans, and a district that has more independent voters than the rest. Polling was done two weekends ago anticipating a Wayne-Zapf smackdown. We’ll see.

Zapf
The anointed Republican candidate looks good but has been doing herself no favors by dueling with CityBeat and hanging out at Teabagger rallies For those late to the game, Zapf said one thing about homosexuals and then claimed something else only to be proven wrong. As such, she’s been lying low and only shows up when she has to like the candidate forum at Clairemont H.S. She gained some sympathy after a joke by Hadley went wrong (he was booed) and lost it after a few seconds of silence in response to a question from Wayne about her public service. She’ll have ABC, the Lincoln Club, and the SD GOP all trying to buy the seat but it will be hard sell with this candidate.

Hadley
Donna’s COS has his work cut out for him. At the moment, Frye seems focused on defeating Strong Mayor and, with Whitburn making a run for Supervisor, Hadley’s natural allies and supporters don’t seem to be there. His sparring with Zapf was unexpected but necessary if he is going to establish himself as his own man and not Donna Frye II.

Wayne
For being the perceived front-runner, Wayne has been spared (so far) the back-and-forth that Zapf and Hadley appear to be doing. With the endorsements of the San Diego police, firefighters and League of Conservation Voters, all Wayne needs to do is keep on keeping on. He has the most money, the best endorsements and has been seen walking precincts. The only thing to fear is that Democrats will succumb to the “Marti Emerald Syndrome” where, like Marti, they assume this is a done deal and wake up the day after the election to discover the Democrat came in second.

Huckabone
This Republican has also been walking precincts and he seems to be gaining a following. He is not Zapf and he is willing to meet voters to make his case. His platform is simple and his signs are a bit much but he knows what he doesn’t know and, unlike Zapf, can speak beyond talking points. This race would be radically different had the GOP establishment gotten behind this guy.

Tran
Word on the street is that Tran, the woman who files yet doesn’t do anything to run for office, is walking precincts as well. With Zapf’s self-inflicted wounds it looks like both Huckbone and Tran are moving in. Can they topple Zapf? They lack the funds and resources but if they knock on enough doors, anything can happen.

District 8: The Never-ending Story

D8 has always attracted its share of characters. Maybe it’s the low voter turnout that allows anyone with a passable campaign to get elected. Maybe it’s the opportunity for graft because of the low levels of oversight. Maybe it’s the elusive change to build a machine.

Maybe there is something in the water. Whatever the reasons are here’s the roundup.

Huseo
Ben’s brother Felipe is campaigning on his family name. I say this because it is so prominent on his signs. Felipe is rough where Ben is smooth. He’s more personable than Ben and it’s convenient that they can share consultants and staff. It’s only a matter of whether Felipe can survive the Inzunza attack machine.

Inzunza
The family is out for blood. As they see it, Ben disrupted the establishment of a landed political dynasty. Now, creating an aristocracy in a democracy isn’t easy to pull off. Things happen (strippergate). As both the Inzunzas and Huesos know, real estate only gets you so far. At some point, you’ve got to pull the trigger. Nick’s doorhangers are nice and glossy although you can easily surmise that he never went to Vietnam. What will be fun to watch will be the piles of mail that will come flooding into mailboxes in the 8th. If the Inzunzas learned anything from Remer, it’s that over-saturation of mail won’t hurt your case, only your treasury.

Alvarez
As the family feud explodes onto the streets, only Alvarez has the room to capitalize on the bloodshed. He has made it into the ring and just needs to avoid direct hits by the other two and he could make the runoff. He’s scrappy and that may put him into the final.

Howard
Initially, I was ready to dismiss B.D. but he has been working the ground like nobody’s business. Granted, when you lack the funds you do what you can. He has gone places other candidates have avoided and, although he may not make the final, I think he’ll do well.