I often find Fat Tuesday a dizzying night. And some of the usual factors are in play: beads around my neck and a cocktail within reach. But that’s not why I’m reeling. Holy shit, this Super part of Fat Tuesday is overwhelming, with so many numbers coming in from so many states, with all of it being sliced and diced by so many talking heads and number crunchers. And as I watch the swirl of data, the main impression I get is that nothing much changed today, except for the fact that we’re inching our truly weird democratic process toward an uncertain conclusion. I think I need to freshen my drink. Laissez les bonnes temps roulez!
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Politics Blog
Obama’s party at the Fairmont Hotel
Finally settled in at the Fairmont downtown after searching fruitlessly in the beginning for a wireless connection.
The most significant thing I’ve seen so far tonight is Oakland City Attorney John Russo throwing his weight behind Obama and MCing tonight’s event. Last night we saw San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera at a rally for Hillary attended by Bill Clinton, Gavin Newsom, Carole Migden and Oakland Vice Mayor Henry Chang.
So now at least we know who wants to return has-been bureaucrats to Washington and who might actually be interested in some original ideas at the federal level. We haven’t seen much talk from analysts about what an Obama cabinet might look like, but for some of us, that’s one of the most intriguing questions of all.
State props
Prop. 92, the community college set aside, is going down hard and the Indian gaming contacts are uniformly ahead with about a million votes each, or 58 percent of turnout thus far.
Parks party celebrates
Piggybacking on the turnout from the presidential election was one of the reasons that Prop. A, the $185 million parks bond, was targeted for this first ever February ballot, San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department director Yomi Agunbiade told me at the Yes on Prop. A party at Boudin’s Bakery in Fisherman’s Wharf. “We’re definitely riding that wave, ” he said minutes after the proposition posted its first real numbers at 67.6 % in favor, surpassing that always difficult 66.6 % it needs to win. Attending the shindig are Sup. Sean Elsbernd, financier Warren Hellman, Neighborhood Parks Council director Isabel Wade, and campaign consultant Patrick Hannan. They say it’s been very hard to get people’s attention for the measure, but they’re pleased that it appears headed to victory.
“This is fantastic. This is going to benefit San Francisco all over the city, improving and repairing old infrastructure and creating new open space,” Elsbernd said.
Hannan credit Eslbernd and Hellman with “carrying the ball” on the campaign, along with parents, athletic leagues and the Fisherman Wharf Merchants Association, which is going to benefit from the measure through improvements at Pier 43. (Sarah Phelan)
Local and state numbers
Where’s the numbers from CA and SF? Hold on, folks, we’re watching and waiting and we have people around town waiting to report and comment.
Clinton takes CA: Projection
CNN is projecting that Clinton will win California. If that’s the case, it will be thanks to her agressive absentee program; she banked a lot of votes over the past month, long before Obama began to pick up momentum.
That’s a big political bounce for Clinton, even if it won’t amount to a huge difference in delegates.
A real convention — or two
The California results aren’t in, but it’s clear that nationwide, nobody dominated Super Tuesday. Clnton and Obama have split the big states, and will split the delegates in California (even if one of them wins the popular vote). Same for the GOP — there’s no clear winner tonight.
So it looks to me right now as if there’s a very good chance that both parties will go into their nominating conventions without a clear nominee. For the first time in my adult life, the conventions may actually mean something. We could have a pair of brokered conventions, perhaps even with no winner on the first ballot.
Could be wild.
All quiet at City Hall
San Francisco City Hall — normally a beehive of activity on election nights — is nearly empty. One reporter (Rick Knee, stringing for AP), a couple of political junkies … and that’s about it. The Department of Elections doesn’t even have its usual display screen for election results.
Frankly, nobody’s paying attention to the local election. California’s a big deal tonigh, and the state primary is huge news; municipal elections are lost in the whirlwind. (Of course, let’s remember that the state’s delegate total, which is what really counts, will probably be split pretty close to even, whoever “wins” the state; Paul Hogarth has a good analysis here.
But there IS a local election, and there are results, and we can pretty much call the three ballot measures now.
Prop. A, the parks bond, needs 66 percent of the vote, and has 64.9 percent in the (generally conservative) absentees. That should pass. Prop. B, the police retirement plan, is a slam dunk and will probably get 70 percent of the vote. The rather wacky Prop. C, the Alcaraz “peace center,” is toast, with 73 percent voting no.
An interesting note the the local vote: Hillary Clinton’s absentee-vote effort had paid off, big time. 65,000 people voted absentee, and Clinton is ahead in those votes, 53-38. I think we’re going to see this statewide — Obama will probably win on election day, but Clinton has a huge bank of absentees that he will have to overcome.
Democratic Party Time
About 75 Democrats clenching glasses of beer and wine gawk at plasma TV’s at Jillian’s bar in SOMA tonight predicting which candidate will win California and eventually the presidency.
San Francisco based Democracy Action is hosting the party for Democrats who eagerly await the primary results. They debate whether Obama or Clinton is the better choice.
“It’s too early to say who’s going to win,” Alec Bash, President of Democracy Action, told the Guardian. “Back in ’04, we thought Kerry would win by a landslide.”
Voting and drinking (and a 14″ penis)
Tuesday, 9:09pm
In anticipation of guzzling free Stella, the Kilowatt has been jammed with voting drinkers since 6pm – well before the Guardian-sposored “Dodge the Drafts” party’s official start time. As for who these drinkers supported today, it’s impossible to guess — even tho I’m surround by fellow Guardian employees, and within eyesight of a woman lustily fingering Obama’s Audacity of Hope. The Obama supporters sharing my table say that the bartenders have informed them that we’re in “Clinton territory.” Who knows?
One thing’s for sure: it’s all about voting and drinking at the mission district bar. The free Stella ran out within an hour.
Tonight’s real winner?
I did get some insight from Tim Paulson. The San Francisco Labor Council head tells me that although there’s no official endorsement from his organization, most laborers he know were in support of John Edwards (perhaps because Edwards marched with striking hotel workers three years ago), and that many of those votes are now going to Obama. Nevertheless machinists and teachers endorsed Clinton, while the SEIU favored Obama.
Hillary supporters snub Obama camp, Newsom makes quiet show
Camped out at campaign headquarters for the past week, Hillary supporters looked bleary-eyed but fervent early this afternoon as they speed-dialed calls to their vast Democratic database. Even if California results wouldn’t be available for several hours, some said, many of the mostly gray-haired women amongst the 70 or so volunteers, were optimistic Clinton would nail the nomination.
Dinner for Dr. Paul
It was a casual dinner affair for the supporters of Ron Paul on election night, with roughly thirty people showing up for dinner under the big screen at Thai Stick, 925 O’Farrell St. As the results came in from around the country, party-goers casually looked up from their animated conversations to remark at the TV screen.
George Gaboury, self-described “media support”, struggled with a projector and screen, but was finally able to set up a slide show of the groups’ past exploits – including the staged Ron Paul “TeaParty” in December. The projected video showed attendees throwing boxes with words like “Patriot Act” and “WTO” written on them off of a pier near the Ferry Building.
“For people who have been abused by the government for so long, this is almost therapy,” Gaboury said, watching the screen.
Who can beat McCain?
If, as seems fairly likely at this point, John McCain comes out of Super Fat Tuesday with a lock on the Republican nomination, the most important question for Democrats is who can beat him. Most polls have Barack Obama narrowly beating McCain and Hillary Clinton narrowly losing to him, although it’s pretty early in the process and the margins are too narrow to put too much stock in them at this point. But there’s good reason to believe that Obama would have a far easier time beating McCain than Clinton would.
And that’s something primary voters should think seriously about before casting their ballots today.
Bill Clinton coaxes voters into windowless van
Bill Clinton always excelled at telling stories. Facing a tough question from a somber-looking vet? Tell a story. Bleary-eyed after hitting several California cities in a single day campaigning on behalf of your wife? Tell a story. Trying to convince undecided voters your family isn’t an inhuman band of relentless over-achievers that hasn’t experienced what most Americans might consider a normal day in decades? Tell a story.
Joined by Gavin Newsom, that’s what Bill Clinton did again for voters yesterday at the Ferry Building in San Francisco. Told a bunch of stories.
What didn’t make sense was why Bill Clinton spent so much time on Monday canvassing California when Hillary’s people have acted as if the state was a lock. By the way, who are the badasses working for her that so brilliantly managed to make C.W. Nevius the vehicle of a localized, anti-Obama whisper campaign? Those bastards are earning their keep.
Hillary’s latest commercial
A vote for Edwards
Christopher Cook, one of my predecessors as city editor of the Bay Guardian, sent out one of the more intriguing appeals that I’ve read today (among the many election eve missives that have been sent my way). It’s a call to vote for John Edwards, even though Edwards dropped out of the race. While I still happily voted for Obama, I think Chris makes good points about the need to keep pushing the Democratic Party candidates to adopt more progressive positions, something that will become even more important in the coming months if Obama and Clinton remain neck-and-neck and we head into a brokered convention.
Tearjerkin’ for Obama
Here we are, awash in the shivers and shudders of another (incredibly fatiguing) election cycle. And although reports are streaming in of another Hillary sob session, the big news on the gushing front is that new star-studded “Yes We Can” vid, produced by Black-Eyed Pea frontman will i. am (ew) and Bob Dylan’s son Jesse, featuring several earnest Hollywood and Billboard players singing along to Obama’s semi-concession speech in New Hampshire.
Dammit, it made me weep a little, despite the fact that the incredibly high-flown rhetoric is a bit suspect (Obama’s really twisting the King gears here) and has absolutely nothing to do with how, exactly, “we can.” Other than voting for Obama with the stars?
700,000+ YouTube views in 48 hours can’t be wrong
Question: What would a John Kerry number have sounded like? Why, oh why, did Dan Fogelburp have to die?
Alas for my enthused bandwagonismy, I foolishly, delightedly lived through the age of Live Aidquarius, and was bonkers as a child over the intensely disingenuous, not to say slightly racist, “Do They Know It’s Christmas“.
Lacey: I’ll bury the Guardian
Mike Lacey, waving, is flanked by attorneys Ivo Labar and H. Sinclair Kerr, left, and Don Moon (who actually IS wearing a puffy coat) right, after hearing testimony about how Lacey told SF Weekly staffers that he wanted to put the Guardian out of business. Photo By Luke Thomas, fogcityjournal.
Three witnesses have testified in the Guardian v. SF Weekly trial that they heard Mike Lacey, a top executive with the chain that owns the Weekly, say he wanted to put the Guardian out of business.
That’s a key part of the case: The Guardian has to prove that the Weekly sold ads below cost – which isn’t much in dispute, since the chain has essentially admitted it – for the purpose of injuring a competitor. The evidence that Lacey, executive editor and one of the two primary owners of Village Voice Media (formerly New Times) intended to damage the Guardian bolsters that point.
The witnesses, former Weekly sales rep Jennifer Lopez, former Weekly co-publisher Carrie Fisher, and former Weekly editor Andrew O’Hehir, all described a January 1995 meeting at which Lacey arrived to tell the staff that New Times had bought the Weekly.
Lacey, along with Jim Larkin, the chain’s other top exec, marched into the Weekly office on Brannan street “with a very intimidating entrance,” Fisher testified. With Lacey and Larkin were Hal Smith, who headed up the chain’s ad sales, and Patty Calhoun, the editor of Westword, a New Times paper.
Lacey launched into a profanity-laced diatribe, Fisher testified, “insulting the office space, insulting the neighborhood and making comments on the quality of the writing” in what was then a small locally owned paper.
At one point, she said, Lacey picked up a copy of the Bay Guardian, threw it on the floor and said “we don’t just want to compete, we want to put the Guardian out of business.” While she said she couldn’t swear to the exactly language Lacey used, “the gist of what he said was very clear.”
Jennifer Lopez, who was a sales rep, testified to the same point yesterday.
Andrew O’Hehir, who was editor of the SF Weekly at the time of New Times purchase in l995, confirmed that story, describing Lacey throwing the Guardian on the floor and saying that the New Times was coming to San Francisco to “bury the Bay Guardian.”
O’Hehir said that Lacey told the Weekly staff that the New Times had “deep pockets and deep resources” and would compete aggressively on both editorial and business fronts with the Guardian, the dominant alternative in San Francisco.
“We intend to beat the Guardian,” he quoted Lacey as saying. In answer to a question a question about the “future relations with the Guardian,” Lacey said that “we are going to bury the Bay Guardian. We would like to put the Bay Guardian out of business.” O’Hehir is now living in New York City and working as columnist for Salon, the online magazine.
H. Sinclair Kerr, attorney for VVM/New Times, sought to minimize the impact of Lacey’s quote by suggesting that Lacey was like a coach coming in to “fire up the team.” No, replied E. Craig Moody, Guardian attorney — in the case of the old Weekly the team was “quickly disbanded.”
In fact, O’Heir was soon fired and most of the rest of the staff either quit or were fired.
The last event of the day was the reading of the deposition of Jim Larkin, the CEO of VVM/New Times. Richard Hill, a Guardian attorney, read the questions from the deposition that he took earlier this year in Larkin’s Phoenix, Arizona office. Ralph Alldredge, another Guardian attorney, sat in the witness box and played Larkin to Hill’s questions.
Larkin admitted in his deposition that the New Times was in a rate battle with the Bay Guardian in San Francisco, but refused to acknowledge that the chain had an advantage because of its size and assets.
Larkin had trouble remember lots of things. He couldn’t remember the Bay Guardian Report that the Weekly publisher prepared each week and sent to him. He was at the Lacey meeting but he couldn’t remember what Lacey about the Guardian or even what Lacey said about anything at the meeting. He denied ever saying he was “going to run the Bay Guardian out of business.”
Larkin also refused to say if he ever put a floor under the Weekly’s below cost sales.
“I try to make money,” he said. “I try to break even. I don’t do things this way.”
Well, if Larkin and his publishers at the SF Weekly and the East Bay Express were operating under Larkin’s mandate to make money, something was going very wrong, because the chain lost $25 million dollars over 11 years, without having one profitable year.
The Guardian claims this is no coincidence – the chain was willing to lose money through below-cost sales in an effort to harm a local competitor, which is illegal under California business law.
The jury trial continues Monday morning at 8:30 before Superior Court Judge Marla Miller.
PS: Andy Van De Voorde is not only nasty, he has no sense of humor. Jesus, Andy, I’m nowhere near cool enough to wear a puffy coat. I do, however, put either my Langlitz Leathers bomber jacket (made by a locally owned independent business) or a waterproof ski jacket over my clothes when it’s pouring rain.
Lighten up, Andy.
Guardian v. SF Weekly update
I wasn’t in court today in the Guardian’s lawsuit against the SF Weekly and its corporate parent – the lawyers for Weekly wanted me to stay out of the courtroom because they might call me back as their own witness later (I look forward to it, guys). Judge Marla Miller ruled later that I could, indeed, attend in the future, so I’ll continue my first-hand accounts shortly.
Meanwhile, other Guardian representatives were there today, and I’ve gotten a report:
Jody Colley, the Guardian’s former sales and marketing manager, testified about her problems fighting the low advertising prices of the SF Weekly/VVM/New Times during her seven years at the Guardian.
Then she testified, as the new publisher of the East Bay Express,
about the challenges she faces in trying to increase the “unacceptably low prices” that she inherited from the
VVM/New Times ownership of the EBX. The paper was purchased in May 2007 by an independent group headed by Hal Brody.
EBX had losses of $l3 million during its six years of New Times ownership. The SF Weekly and EBX combined lost $25 million during the 11 years of New Times ownership, according to financial exhibits presented by the Guardian. This was evidence of consistent below-cost pricing.
Colley testified that she had agreed to honor the New Times advertising contracts with the EBX, but ran into difficulties because of their low prices. One example that she gave involved the Bill Graham Presents/Clear Channel concert advertising contract. She asked for a copy of the contract but neither BGP nor SF Weekly publisher Josh Fromson would give it to her. She then went directly to BGP to renegotiate the rates, but the company refused.
The trial continues at 8:30 a.m. Friday in the Superior Court of Judge Marla Miller. Carrie Fisher, associate publisher of the SF Weekly at the time of the sale in l995, and Guardian advertising rep Mary Samson are scheduled to testify.
STOP THE PRESSES: Mike Lacey, the executive of the VVM/New Times chain, was given a new title at the hearing.
It was bestowed by Jennifer Lopez, former SF Weekly and Guardian advertising sales rep. She was testified that Lacey, at a meeting of the SF Weekly staff at the time of the New Times purchase in l995, called the Guardian “a piece of shit” and threw the Guardian on the floor and stomped on it. She quoted him as saying, “We want to be the only game in town.” Then Craig Moody, a Guardian attorney, asked her if Lacey was speaking for the New Times and who he was.
She said she thought he was “the mascot for the New Times.”
By the way (and that concludes the court report, and it’s back to me again): VVM, the chain formerly known as New Times, has an out-of-town hit man named Andy Van De Voorde covering the trial. He was happy to take nasty swings at Jean Dibble and Colley (though he wasn’t quite so mean to me, go figure), but he still hasn’t explained why VVM/New Times was willing to lose $25 million in San Francisco, selling ads below cost for 11 years, if the goal wasn’t to damage the locally owned competitor.
I don’t want my coverage of this trial to be about Mr. Van De Voorde. I don’t expect him to be fair (and I’m sure nobody expects me to be fair, either – we work for the two parties to the case).
But I have to say: his reporting has been breathtaking in its personal viciousness. I’ve seen a lot of hit pieces over the years, and been subject to them myself, but this is another order of magnitude altogether.
Personal note to Andy: I don’t believe I own a “puffy jacket.”You might want to run a correction.
Sandoval picks his target
You read it here first that Sup. Gerardo Sandoval has decided to run for judge in June, and now we can report that he has picked a target: Judge Thomas A. Mellon Jr. This seems like a fine choice given that Sandoval has made his run about challenging a “bench that does not reflect San Francisco in any meaningful way.” Mellon was appointed to the slot by former Gov. Pete Wilson in 1994 after serving 18 years as a business litigator, and has received generally poor ratings from the attorneys he’s dealt with, particularly those in the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office who have openly feuded with Mellon. “I don’t have anything personal against Judge Mellon, but many of my supporters felt strongly about him and that was a very important consideration,” Sandoval told us.
Keep reading the Guardian for more reporting soon on Judge Mellon (hopefully including his perspective on the race and responses to past criticism of him), this rare contested judge’s race, and other issues related to the role of the courts in San Francisco.
Newsom prioritizes politics over parks
After starting his day by warning the Mayor’s Open Space Task Force not to propose a big expenditure for new parks in San Francisco, Mayor Gavin Newsom then canceled a noontime rally and press conference in support of the big parks bond on Tuesday’s bond, Proposition A, in order to attend tonight’s Democratic presidential debate in Los Angeles.
“We are all about collaborative innovation,” Newsom told a room filled with department heads, parks advocates, and leading academics, clutching a disposable Starbucks coffee cup as he spoke. “If this task force comes back [at the end of the year when the report is expected] and says we need hundreds of millions of dollars, I’d say don’t waste your time.”
A waste of time was the label that many attendees applied to the meeting – which was called for by the Neighborhood Parks Council and SPUR but organized by Mike Farrah, a close mayoral confidante who Newsom recently named as head of the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Services – as mostly mid-level staffers from various city departments offered basic and fairly tedious information about existing recreational inventories and possible opportunities.
Yet the stakes couldn’t be higher on the overdue $185 million bond measure, which has wide support but needs a two-thirds vote to be approved. Newsom made oblique references to the measure, which he’s supporting, during his speech but was careful not to run afoul of electioneering laws and advocate for it inside City Hall.
I’ve questioned Newsom’s priorities before, and this seems like another good example of putting his personal political ambitions ahead of the city’s interests. But apparently he got a call from Hillary Clinton’s campaign – considering his daily schedule was modified at 10:50 a.m. to drop the rally (which representatives from five different environment groups were scheduled to attend) and add the debate – and quickly flew down to help out.
Year of Rat meets the SFPD
Cool image, courtesy of the SFPD’s website.