At Costco the other day, I ran into a Chico City Council candidate who had some pretty choice words for me regarding this blog and my reaction to the Slate Mailer Scandal. I had written that I hoped the Chico City Council Democrats lost the election due to their use of deceptive Slate Mailers. "You got your wish", this Candidate said---going on to say that their loss (the Dem. City Council Candidates) was my fault. And then this Candidate attempted to guilt me with the "We need to stick together come hell or high water" argument.
It was a good conversation. This poor Candidate had paid $500 to put a name on something that took him/her by surprise. The amount of exposure the mailing would give the Candidate was just too tempting. It was obvious that this scandal had shook him/her to the core. "My reputation means everything to me and now I've been slimed".
And then there was the story of the door hangers. The door hangers had President Clinton's face on it. This Candidate wanted to celebrate Obama and complained. So President Clinton's face was taken off the door hanger and guess whose face replaced him? Jerry Brown's dog. Yes, you read that right: The consultants for the local Dems thought that Jerry Brown's dog was more popular than President Obama.
Was I wrong for being so hard on this Candidate? No. This decent person got caught up in Machiavellian politics and this was way beneath him/her. Tactics matter. They matter in every campaign. Especially if you are the minority party or if you are attempting to defend turf---which was true in this Chico City Election.
At a meeting last night of the Paradise Democratic Club, the whole issue of the Slate Mailers, the Door Hangers and the Democratic Party's endorsement of the Cannabis Industry was pretty much ignored. It seems everyone wants to forget about this past election. We forget at our peril.
And so there will be a meeting on December 7 for a post mortem of the Butte County Democratic Party's behavior in the last election. I plan on attending. Should these things be ignored, I fully intend to drop my registration in the Democratic Party.
I didn't see it because I don't live in the city limits but everyone I knew who went door to door with the door hangers was complaining about and striking out the Yes on Prop 1. How, when we need to preserve our water resources can local dems promote shipping our water south? Jerry Brown has absolutely nothing going for him now. He is as bankrupt as Obama. We are in for a very rough ride with no Democrats who have spines for the rights of the people or for the environment that sustains us.
ReplyDeleteSome who hung the door hangers in Paradise/Magalia tore off the part that endorsed Measure B. All in all, those door hangers upset way more people than they pleased. This election was a blistering failure conducted by the local Democrats. Some of the party leadership was too cozy with Jerry Brown and some of the leadership were way too cozy with Andrew Merkel. For the environment and the wildlife of Butte County, the Democrats turned out to be totally awful.
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