Only a True Friend Would Save You from Winning

I tend to ignore local politics as it's simply large scale politics with even bigger egos to make up for the less that's at stake. Everything gets hyper-parochial, where each and every individual backyard makes one NIMBY-enough to vote for a candidate despite all of his or her other positions with which one might not agree.

Things only get worse when comments start running like they have of late on FB, and I should know better sure. But here's how an exchange went recently, and let's see what you good people think.... As you might have seen, Craig Smith, ever on top of things, posted about a meeting between mayoral candidates Steve Cushman and Dale Francisco. He also linked a PDF of a letter that Cushman sent Francisco after the meeting, requesting that the only honorable thing Francisco could do would be to drop out of the race, for the good of Santa Barbara, of course. For nothing could be better for the good of Santa Barbara, then, uh, Steve Cushman. I mean, just ask him. (If you haven't read the letter, go do so at once to learn what a patronizing tone is.) A big part of that is if Francisco loses, then he's one lonely voice amidst the 7 council members and mayor, just as he is now. Of course, Cushman can't imagine (perhaps accurately, but still) that any of the more conservative council candidates might win and help support a Francisco agenda. But, at the same time, Cushman can imagine that if he's mayor and Francisco is still a councilman, their 28% share of the city power will move mountains. (Remember, this is a guy with a business background making this claim, not some dumb writer like me.)

But, separate from all that, there are direct points that drive me nuts in the Cushman letter that I have to assume reveals more of him than he would want revealed. For instance, when he writes "I want to stop the massive giveaway of our neighbors' tax dollars" it's instructive to remember that Cushman lives on the Riviera. So his neighbors probably aren't your neighbors. I doubt he considers the westside or lower eastside his neighbors.

But then there's this--Cushman's insistence that the biggest threat to Santa Barbara is employee unions. I guess that's what it means to be pro-business these days--to assume you can run one without any pesky workers. Or at least any that might think they need to band together to get a fair wage and good working conditions. But demonizing the unions is a simple, nay simplistic, solution--the kind someone as vapid (and only about her own money) as a Wendy McCaw might make. Is someone who is willing to scapegoat like that the person we want to be our mayor? (And that's leaving aside thinking the town would have a better way of life if the people who lived in it had crappier jobs. Uh, thanks, mayor.)

So, back to the FB worries. I posted a link to this letter on a FB friend's page who has been trying to run a forum on the election. I linked to the letter and said, "Anyone who wants to blame all of the city's woes on employee unions is blind to the complexity of running a city and going for the easy scapegoat." And then someone else posted this, and unless it's Harry Shearer or someone from The Onion making wise, I'm really really worried: "We precisely need someone who is blind to the complexities and end this 'we can't do anything about this mess' mentality."

Didn't 8 years of The Decider teach us anything? Are our only two choices thinking complexly or doing? Action and thought are not opposed, my friends. What we need is informed action.

Perfect Models of Muddled Major Mayors

There was a horrible wrong-way-driver crash on the 101 in Santa Barbara this morning, complete with fatalities, and therefore the highway, and soon every surface street, was choked. We became a wonderful parking lot of not moving, not getting to work. Puts stuff in perspective. Late to work is much better than late period. Sometimes we have to be shaken out of our rush hours.

And much more mundanely, there was this--I turned to local AM radio hoping to figure out what was going on, what route might be best. This merely put me in the path of local pols trying to make their cases for being mayor. This merely made me dislike the candidates I already disliked even more.

As regular readers (hiya, both of you) might expect, just a word or phrase can be enough to set me off, as I'm in the business of words. (Didn't say I was a good businessman, just want my vocation clear.) First up is an ad from Steve Cushman, who wants to be mayor. And along his way to trying to prove that in 60 seconds, he says, "Because Santa Barbara is the best city in the world" or something very much to that effect. Sorry, Steve, but even as a big SB booster--I mean I do that professionally too, as George is my name and PR is my game--that's just an asinine, sucking up, bullshit thing to say. Who the hell knows what's the best city in the world? I might take Paris, another San Francisco, someone Cheyenne where I've never been. It's a stupid contest and a stupid thing for someone who has to make smart decisions to say. It means you'll say anything to be elected--it's like pretending that the whole damn town is one big baby to be smooched.

Next up was Dale Francisco, who instead of smooching, choose to shat on whole groups of people. He said to vote for him to keep "political activists and the unions" from running Santa Barbara. First, I sort of missed the political activists running town--I wish folks like Dick and Mickey Flacks were running things, but I'm pretty sure they're not. This "political activists" charge is sort of like when the right complains about "activist judges"--they only mean the judges who do things they don't want done. When the court rules in favor of corporations, white folk, etc., that's just justice, dammit. Comes direct from the god I made in my image.

And then the poor unions. Don't people realize that unions are just a bunch of people who actually work for a living? Sure, many unions are now white collar, not blue, but that's mostly because we've got rid of so many blue collars jobs or are very good at snuffing out any unionizing attempts before they can give people hope for better work conditions or a living wage. But there will always be a segment of the world (led by people like Wendy McCaw--gee, a rich woman hates unions, who'd guess?) that say the word union like they've just bit into a dog poop and maggot sandwich on a leper's shoe leather bread.

So it seems pretty easy, now, to decide who not to vote for for mayor. Glad your ads did the trick, gentlemen.