While I have been quiet and busy, I haven’t stayed away from keeping my eye on the local races throughout the county. I want to throw in my two cents before results come rolling in tonight.

The Big One – Board of Supervisors

The biggest race tonight will be Ron Robert’s re-election race for the Board of Supervisors. It has been interesting watching Roberts struggle the past four weeks. Previously he was an arrogant elected official and lately he has had to learn how to act like a candidate in order to at least have another four years on the Board of Supervisors.  He likes to poke holes in Stepehen Whitburn’s statements whenever on the campaign trail. Roberts does that to cover up the fact that he has nothing fresh to offer for the voters.

Whitburn will finish a strong second tonight to force a run off. This will be a big wake up call to all the supervisors and will be the start of a change of composition on the board. It might encourage Pam Slate-Price to give up a nasty battle against popular republican challenger, Steve Danon. If Cheryl Cox loses re-election to her CV Mayor seat then I am pretty certain Greg Cox will start looking at not running for re-election in 2012 considering the fact that he will likely have to face popular termed out State Senator Denise Ducheny and possibly SD City Council President Ben Hueso if he fails to win the 79^th AD primary tonight. Tonight’s results will be the start of a chain reaction for the other supervisors to step aside and let some fresh blood onto the board in 2012 or face what Roberts is going through right now.

City of San Diego D8

South Bay is the busiest battleground this season. I am fortunate to be living in the middle of it all. In January, I seriously thought David Alvarez had everything under control in the SD City Council D8 race. But that was before March when both BD Howard and Nick Inzunza started blitzing Nestor/Egger Highlands. If you are like most voters from central SD you will be thinking where in the world is Nestor/Egger Highlands? Those two neighborhoods are actually part of the City of San Diego even though they are south of Chula Vista and west of the 5 interstate freeway and right next door to Imperial Beach. It is out of the way and often forgotten. Inzunza and Howard have pounced on the opportunity to focus heavily on these neighborhoods and it is showing. I usually drive home getting off at Palm Avenue driving West and usually see a somber faced Inzunza waving at everyone driving by. I have never seen him smile while waving which shows how long he has been standing out on the streets waving and increasing his name ID.

I am predicting Inzuna wins 1^st and then Alvarez comes in a weak second to set them up for a Fall matchup. Alvarez will have the ultimate advantage as it will become a two man field and focusing only on Nestor/Egger Highlands won’t cut it for a run-off victory.

City of San Diego D6

Kim Tran is taking a similar approach that both Inzunza and Howard took in the D8 race. Tran is focusing heavily on Linda Vista, which is an often forgotten neighborhood. Sure you need Clairemont to win the D6 seat outright but in a crowded field if you are able to carry Linda Vista that will get you in the run off. Tran has high name ID from her numerous failed write in campaigns for State Assembly. Most people don’t remember that but she had plenty of signs in Linda Vista and I lived there for a long time before moving to South Bay and got tired of seeing the Tran signs and that has built up some significant name ID for her.

I predict Howard Wayne will come in a strong first and Tran will come in 2^nd due to her strong name ID in Linda Vista. Everyone else will come trailing behind. The GOP will then put their weight behind Tran for November’s run off but it will be too late since Wayne will have his grip on Clairemont and will start eating into Tran’s turf in Linda Vista.

State Assembly 79^th AD

I am predicting a huge upset. Pearl Quinones has been working hard and I haven’t been a fan of her campaign but the fact is that this candidate has been working so hard. She was a clear contrast to Ben Hueso who was largely absent from South Bay until a few weeks ago. My neighborhood still hasn’t been canvassed by Hueso’s team and his recent negative mailer on Quinones was a big turn off considering that Hueso has been largely invisible from Nestor/Egger Highlands. Quinones will pull off the upset win and alter the landscape for future state assembly races in South Bay.

Past wisdom was that the current D8 seat holder was always the shoo in frontrunner for the 79^th AD seat. The exception was when Ralph Inzunza was convicted and left office. That created a rare opportunity for a smaller seat holder like Salas to swoop in for the seat. I figured it would be returned to the City of SD D8 seatholder in future elections. But with the way Hueso ran his campaign it seems like he is opening the floodgates for future city councilmembers/mayors/school board members from Chula Vista, Imperial Beach and National City to consider running for state assembly without having to worry about past history giving the City of SD D8 seat holder the advantage.

The Salas for State Senate campaign has come out swinging the past two weeks. They needed to kick it up a notch since Juan Vargas’ buddies from the insurance companies that he is chummy with are going to be burning through cash to help people remember who Vargas is and why they should send him back to Sacramento.

It is starting to get interesting and somewhat ironic. First example… Look at Vargas’ campaign yard signs “Clean Up Sacramento – Vargas for State Senate”… Riiiight… If I wanted to clean up Sacramento, I wouldn’t be sending a politician who spent six years cuddling with the insurance lobbyists in Sacramento and then promising everyone he wouldn’t go to work for insurance once he was termed out only to see him do a 360 degree tailspin and go to work for insurance.

Salas has a tough playbook to use. She wants to remind people that Vargas is the sleazy politician but when she does that she is actually raising his name ID and people who live in City of SD’s D8 have fond memories of Vargas when he was their guy in City Hall. So it is sort of a catch-22 trying to remind people that Vargas is the politician you wouldn’t want representing you in Sacramento while reminding voters about Vargas’ past in South Bay.

On Saturday two weeks ago the Salas campaign sent out a nice colorful mailer piece that touted all of her endorsements and it was a really nice eye catching mailer. The timing of the mailer was quite clever. Saturday is the day when we get the less amount of junk mail and to get a campaign mailer on a Saturday was easy for a South Bay voter like myself to quickly single out the mailer piece and read it to find out more about the Salas campaign.

The Salas campaign then followed up last week with a hard hitting mail piece reminding voters who Juan Vargas really is. I will try to get a PDF of the mailer from the Salas campaign to post up here. It was bold and to the point. I have always been a Salas supporter but believed that Vargas was going to pull it off but now that I am seeing the Salas campaign under the leadership of Barry Klein become more focused and aggressive, I believe Salas is going to build momentum. The campaign was already building momentum when Klein began churning out tons of press releases about endorsements. The endorsements were great eye candy but I didn’t see any real action until the mailer pieces came out. I am looking forward to seeing what the Vargas campaign will come up with because I really can’t think of anything negative to stick on Salas. But then again it was the Vargas henchman, Colin Rice, who spearheaded the last minute nasty mailer on Stephen Whitburn during the 2008 campaign for the City of SD D3 seat. Whitburn was a pretty clean candidate but Rice was able to spin a very negative piece that generated a lot of publicity. If Rice did that in 2008, it isn’t too far-fetched to imagine Rice coming up with something similar in 2010 so I am curious what it will be.

This race will be the closest one to watch on election night in June. I am no longer placing my money on Vargas and will be placing my money on Salas. Hopefully she will come out the victor. Will keep tracking this race up to the end in June.

A while back I figured that Juan Vargas had the edge for the 40th State Senate seat. After all his campaign has the nicest holiday greeting card/letter out of all South Bay politicians. Just a week ago I heard a knock on my door. It was 7pm and I wondered who the heck would be knocking at my door at night. It was a Juan Vargas canvasser who looked like a college freshman. After a brief conversation about Vargas’ candidacy, the kid left and my wife asked me why the heck anyone would be knocking at doors after dark. I told her that was the beauty of an election season heating up. Although it was sort of stupid and dangerous because the canvasser was actually walking in the direction towards San Diego (Nestor/Egger Highlands) and away from Imperial Beach. IB is the safe side and walking towards the SD side is sorta like walking towards Skyline at 9pm. I hope he survived the rest of the night if he kept canvassing as he walked towards the SD line.

That kid was the first sign of any politicking or canvassing in my neighborhood. I haven’t seen any of the 79th AD candidates or any of the 40th SD candidates until Vargas’ canvasser last week. Was wondering what was going on and if they were waging a money race instead of an on the ground race.

Then along comes word that Salas has secured the recommendation from delegates in the 40th SD to receive the Democratic Party endorsement. She won this recommendation in a huge way with ZERO competition. The vote tally was 84-0. Yes you read that right, 84 delegates overwhelmingly voted to recommended endorsement of the Salas campaign by the Democratic Party.

I am not sure why not even one or a dozen of the delegates backed Vargas. It is one thing to run against the party’s machinery if you are well established with only a few activists on your side but it becomes exceedingly difficult to win a race without the party’s backing especially if NONE of the delegates from the district support your campaign.  It is also bad considering the fact that Vargas was a long time fixture in South Bay politics since he was on the SD City Council  and then the State Assembly. He should have at least churned out one supporter out of eighty-four!

It is also notable that her press release was written by Barry Klein who is a political operative from the east coast. He worked for a congressman in NYC and then he moved over here when his wife accepted work in San Diego. He is definitely a top get for any campaign and to see that he is now working for Salas actually bodes well for her campaign. Vargas has plenty of talented operatives in Jim Anderson and co. But Barry Klein is definitely good new political talent that hasn’t been utilized by local candidates until now. I look forward to seeing if the Salas campaign will get better with Barry Klein on board.

With election season in full swing and candidates doing door to door canvassing every weekend, I am getting nosy and want to know what campaign literature campaigns are putting out. I was able to get my hands on the walk piece for Humberto Peraza, the leading Dem in the CV City Council race. He has raised a lot of money and is the favorite to win this race. I expected and hoped he would have a nice walk piece and when I finally got it, I was very impressed to see what Peraza’s campaign put out.

PAGE 1 of PERAZA WALK PIECE
PAGE 2 of PERAZA WALK PIECE

Peraza knows Campaigns 101. A lot of first time candidates get it wrong and list a bunch of boring stuff and are off message. Peraza gets it right the first time with a well designed walk piece that includes several of the “must have” pictures and his to-the-point message of why CV needs to elect him: Jobs, Public Safety, Quality of Life, Traffic & Transportation and Veterans. But I think I liked the “must-have” pictures more. Peraza is well known in the political community but for some reason I had never seen his wife. His cute kids? Seen ‘em on his FB page. His wife? Nowhere to be seen until her debut on his walk piece. Cute All-American family. I think it will resonate with voters when they see him as a family man instead of just a young on-the-rise leader.

If you have any copies of campaign walk pieces, mailers or campaign speeches caught on video, send them my way at pepe@bluesd.com and will post it up on the blog with my thoughts.

SDUT has a good read out on Hueso’s recent proposal for an ordinance that would force city contractors working on projects that cost more than $25,000 or use more than $500,000 in redevelopment funding to be required to allocate at least 70% of the work hours to county residents or military veterans. 10% of the work would also be allocated to disadvantaged workers who live in communities with higher unemployment rates.

The plan sounds really good and is smart politics for any elected official during these trying economic times. I am surprised officials didn’t do this sooner since our economy was been in the tank a while now. It is good to see Hueso step up to the plate. This potrays Hueso in a very good light and he will have an easy time crowning himself as the candidate of the working folks as he continues to campaign for the 79th AD nod. Currently his opponent Pearl Quiñones has been furiously canvassing and trying to scoop up non-existent support. Everyone is lining up behind the invincible Hueso and this proposal only shows why he is such a strong and good candidate for the 79th AD. Quiñones will have an even more difficult time convincing undecided voters as to why she would be a better choice over Hueso.

The District 40 State Senate seat up for grabs is turning out to be more intriguing as the clock runs down to June where the victor of the primary on the Democratic side will cruise to victory if Shirley Horton continues to sit on the sidelines.

As of 1/29/10, Salas had $240,128.25 on hand for her State Senate campaign committee. As of 2/1/10, former Assembly member Juan Vargas had $130,025.87.

The race is getting hot and it is becoming more difficult to determine who has the advantage as the race enters the homestretch. Originally I thought Salas would have the big advantage as she is the current assembly member for the 79th AD while Vargas has been out of office for a while now but Vargas has still been able to rake in the money. If both were duking it out for the 76th AD or the 39th SD seat then I would have given Salas a clear cut advantage as money rules in small dense districts with many different types of niche voters. But in the 40th SD that isn’t the case, as long as a candidate can have over 100k cash on hand, they are viable for any seat in South Bay. Retail politics and name ID means more than cash if both candidates are bringing in sufficient amounts of cash so Salas doesn’t appear to have any real advantage even with 110k more in the bank than Vargas.

I figured that maybe I should predict the winner of the race by how good each of their holiday cards were. Both candidates sent nice looking holiday cards but Vargas went the extra mile by including a nicely written letter by one of his staff daughters. I liked Vargas’ holiday card/letter much better than Salas. So for the stake of trying to predict a winner in the State Senate contest, I will use the holiday cards to make an unscientific prediction: If Vargas continues going the extra distance in retail politics, he will squeak out a win by a very small margin but my heart lays with Mary Salas and hopefully she can utilize the fact that she is a current elected official to pull off the promotion.

Here are the cards/letter from the Salas & Vargas campaigns.

Front of the Salas Postcard

Back of the Salas Postcard

Front of Vargas Holiday Card

Back of Vargas Holiday Card

Copy of Letter written by Vargas Staff Daughter

You may have noticed that I have been on a long break from the blog since December.

It got really quiet in December and I got bored of the blog’s layout. I started seeking out a new layout and when tinkering with it during winter break, I accidentally shut down the site completely and haven’t been able to put the old site back up.

I decided not to try to fix anything until I could come up with a new look for the site and I feel satisfied that I have found the look that I want this blog to reflect.

For those of you who know me, I love analyzing politics and looking at races from all sides. I want to focus mostly on writing about political strategy in local races and move away from repeating press releases or information passed on from campaigns. I have invited several people to write for this blog and write in their own words of what is going on with several campaigns they are working on. I want to diversify the content on this blog. The first time I did this blog, there were only three writers. I wrote at least 95% of the content and I felt burned out and unmotivated.  Hopefully this time I will be a small contributor part of a large democratic base of local bloggers keeping the rest of the community informed of what is happening with our candidates so we can support them. If you are interested in blogging for this website, please do not hesistate to contact me at pepe@bluesd.com. I would love to have as many bloggers contribute to this website!

I look forward to seeing this blog grow again as election season heats up!

-Pepe