By Tim Redmond
Not a whole lot going on here yet, no results yet and it will be a while. But nationally, the Democrats have picked up nine in the house. Good news so far.
The race that I find the most interesting is the Rhose Island Senate contest, where Lincoln Chaffee, a popular liberal Republican who opposed the war, lost anyway. People were so mad at Bush and the GOP that they voted against a Republican who had soaring popularity ratings.
Says something.
live report by Jon Beckhardt
The energy at Harry Ha’s restaurant on Irving isn’t exactly captiviting. Janry Mak’s core campaign has yet to show at the election night party being held there. “It’s hard to know,” one supporter, who refuses to give his name, says of Mak’s chances of becoming a Supervisor. “They say we won’t know the results until Friday. That’s San Francisco politics.”
By Tim Redmond
Well, so far, with East Coast results trickling in, the Democrats have picked up three seats in the Senate. The GOP has picked up nothing. Nada. Looking good for the Democrats.
The House is a little slower going. So far, the Democrats are up two.
By G.W. Schulz
The New York Times reported yesterday (and NPR followed up with a little piece) that Google planned to start selling advertisements in the print editions of 50 major newspapers for a test run. Considering the search-engine giant’s business still relies on advertising at the end of the day despite where it’s hunting lately for new investments, it looks like the “do no evil” kingpins of Wall Street are hoping to build an alliance with the old guard of journalism and information dissemination.
According to the Times:
“Advertisers can log into Google’s main advertising system, known as AdWords, and click to go to the newspaper section. They will see a list of the participating papers and the sorts of ads that are available. They can then enter a bid for a certain type of advertisement, specifying the section and date range. Newspapers in turn see these bids and accept the ones they want.”
Hell, maybe we’ll see a full-size Fleshbot ad in the Orange County Register by the end of the Month. Likely not.
Anyway, Google appears to be trying to figure out what to do with its mountains of cash and now globally recognized brand name. They couldn’t throw $1.6 billion at YouTube and its tangle of litigation fast enough.
So, where to next, Google? Selling gorilla graffiti spots on sidewalks?
By Tim Redmond
So, the folks at sfist posted an item earlier today about the door-hangers with the Guardian logo and the Guardian slate on them. Sfist got it wrong, then apologized, but I want to clear up any confusion here:
The Guardian doesn’t do slate cards.
We do endorsements, based on our own independent analysis of what’s best for the city, the state and the country. When we’re done, some of the candidates inevitably decide to quote from our endorsements or use our headlines or our logo to promote their campaigns. That’s fine with me — political campaigns use newspaper quotes, headlines and logos all the time. Even if it wasn’t fine with me, I don’t think there’s anything we could do to stop it.
A few years ago, some of the progressive campaigns got together and decided to reprint the entire list of Guardian endorsements as a door hanger “slate card.” Again: Fine with me. Again: Nothing I could do if it wasn’t. Once or twice since then, as a matter of courtesy, the campaigns have called to let me know what they’re doing. I always say the same thing: Please, out of courtesy, make it clear that the card you produce is neither paid for by nor produced by the Bay Guardian. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.
In this case, I guess, there was some confusion, leading some to wonder if we “sold” our endorsements. We take our endorsments more seriously than anything else we do; just ask anyone who’s been through the process or anyone who’s ever worked here. We don’t control what individual campaigns do with our endorsements. But we aren’t involved, make no money off it, don’t control content, don’t decide where the doorhangers go and many times (like this year) didn’t even know it was happening.
Hope that clears things up.
The Chris Daly campaign just issued the following statement:
Almost 20 percent of the polling places in San Francisco’s District 6 are experiencing problems and irregularities in the early hours of Election Day, according to Supervisor Chris Daly’s campaign.
According to the Daly campaign, at least 10 out of 52 precincts have experienced problems ranging from late openings to voting machine failures to incomplete ballots. In one case, a precinct did not open until almost 90 minutes after the official 7 AM opening time, preventing many voters from casting their ballots. At the same time, the Department of Elections was telling the Daly campaign that the precinct was open. In another instance, witnesses saw a voting machine that was not turned on.
The Daly campaign encourages all media outlets to remind voters that the polls are open until 8 p.m. The campaign encourages all voters within District 6 to vote throughout the day.
By G.W. Schulz
Two former executives at the San Francisco-based McKesson Corp. escaped prison sentences by the skin of their teeth late last week in this ongoing era of blind fury over corporate corruption. And McKesson’s former blue suits have the indecisiveness of just one juror out of 12 to thank.
The two were acquitted on one count of securities fraud stemming from a $9 billion accounting scandal, but a mistrial was declared after the jury deadlocked 11-1 on three of the remaining counts. Four other executives were previously convicted in a scheme by which the company allegedly overstated revenue to the tune of $300 million during its merger with an Atlanta-based outfit called HBO & Co.
McKesson is one of the nation’s largest prescription-drug wholesalers with revenue of $88 billion annually. It’s current CEO, John Hammergren, makes more each year than even the head of Bay Area-based ChevronTexaco.
One juror told the Associated Press that the rebel holdout “got to the point where he didn’t want to be talked to anymore.” U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan’s office is determining whether to retry, which could still land the two men, Charles McCall and Jay Lapine, in jail for 10 years each.
The Guardian reported in late October that McKesson is in no small amount of trouble these days. The company, along with the New York-based Hearst Corp., which owns the San Francisco Chronicle, was charged by a group of unions in a civil suit filed in a Boston federal court last year of conspiring to inflate drug prices. Hearst owns a drug info publishing company based in San Bruno called First DataBank. The suit alleges that the effort caused consumers to overpay $7 billion for prescription drugs between 2001 and 2005. First DataBank has since settled, as we reported, but McKesson is still a major target of the lawsuit.
Big Pharma is nearly as profitable as Big Oil these days. The state of California pays out over $3 billion each year for prescription drugs through programs that benefit children and the indigent, while Santa Clara County alone — as a smaller-scale example — pays out nearly $35 million. (Santa Clara County sued a bunch of manufacturers and wholesalers a couple of years ago for allegedly rigging prices, but the case was recently tossed out of federal court in San Francisco.)
Defense attorneys for the former McKesson execs are calling last week’s ruling a victory, but Wall Street didn’t appear to see it that way. Value of the company’s shares dropped by nearly a half following announcement of the news to $35. The company quickly informed the business press just a few days later of its $1.1 billion purchase of Georgia-based Per-Se Technologies and just as soon recovered $15 per share of the drop. Guess corporate ethics don’t have to be much of a pain in the monetary ass after all.
By Tim Redmond
It’s a beautiful day, no rain in sight. I was driving my kids to school this morning through the Castro, and Alix Rosenthal was winning the battle of the people with street signs, if that matters. Polling places in Bernal Heights, where there is no supervisorial race, were pretty busy, which means turnout in D6, D4 and D8 should be high, too.
Robert Haaland is predicting Daly 51, Black 39, which would be nice. The reality is that there are more Daly voters than Black voters in the district, and if the Daly campaign can get them to the polls, he’ll win handily.
Just in from a former LA W’eekly sales staffer (from LA Observed.com, the online media site that people in the media business read in LA). For the best coverage of this rollicking tale, go to the LA Observed site.
Culture war at LA Weekly: A former sales staffer speaks out…
By G.W. Schulz
For locals familiar with the small town of Pacifica, nestled quietly off Highway 1 a few miles south of the city, major commercial development isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. It’s mostly a residential town with a Safeway, a Taco Bell, and not much else comprising its business community as far as chains go.
Over the years, various developers have targeted a patch of empty land near the beach that once served as an 87-acre rock quarry (known as Rockaway Quarry) until its owner grew old and Pacificans began using the now naturally outgrown tract as a network of unmarked trails.
An East Coast developer named R. Donahue Peebles bought the quarry last summer for $7.5 million and has pledged to build 350 exclusive hotel suites, 130 single-family homes, more than 200 town houses, live-work lofts and apartments, and an untold number of stores, such as the Gap and Trader Joe’s.
But Peebles is up against one thing that has stopped developers in the past: a 1983 city ordinance that requires any developer to receive voter approval before including a housing element in the quarry’s future. Pacifica has so much residential property as it stands that its early hope was to attract some commercial businesses to help fortify city coffers with new tax revenue. But Peebles stands to make a hefty chunk of change if housing is included in the development; he’s told the business press in the past that single-family homes on the property could range anywhere from $3 million to $8 million.
Peebles has so far shrewdly declined to submit an official plan to the city, but through a series of public meetings has been promising a mixture of housing and commercial elements, both designed with New Urbanism concepts.
When we first reported this story a few months ago, records we’d obtained from Pacifica’s City Hall showed Peebles had already spent $163,000 attempting to overcome the 1983 law with Measure L, which Pacifica residents will vote on today. Since then, we’ve learned that Peebles has spent $1.3 million, and critics are now complaining about two push polls residents have received in recent months. (One reported question: “Would you prefer this project or the big-box store it’s currently zoned for?”)
We noted that Peebles had hired a costly public relations firm (two staffers worked as communications hacks for both the Democratic AND Republican parties; only big money consulting gigs can truly ease partisan woes) and a group of Sacramento lawyers known for their success at carrying ballot measures. Tens of thousands more went to professional petition circulators. Peebles is no virgin to development battles. He’s played a role in erecting major hotels and commercial office buildings inside cities on the East Coast where cronyism and pay-to-play politics are a fact of everyday life.
And Peebles isn’t the first developer to take on Pacifica’s 1983 law. Just a few years ago, a publicly traded Texas developer named Trammell Crow spent nearly $300,000 in an attempt to build 165,000 square feet of retail space, over 300 apartments and townhouses and a town center. The effort was easily defeated by voters. Some concern over how development at the quarry would impact the area ecologically still exists today.
Rain or shine, opponents of Measure L say they’ll be taking a walk along the quarry this evening after an election party.
By Tim Redmond
Well, my friends, once again it’s election day, and once again, our site is under attack. It looks like a serious, well-orchestrated effort aimed at shutting us down just when readers look to us the most for ballot recommendations.
The attack started around 10 last night, and continues to this minute. Fortunately, we were well prepared this time, and with our IT director, Joe Pennant, our web designer, John Adams at eline.com, and our host, Ronnie Enriquez at Infraswitch, all doing heroic work, we’re still up and running.
We have backup plans, so we should be available all day no matter what. But if the site goes down briefly, don’t panic — just check back a few minutes later.
By Steven T. Jones
I just got another call from Warren Hellman, who said he was saddened to see a group he founded but later disavowed — the sleazy conservative attack organization SFSOS — is one of the only groups in town to oppose the school bond measure Proposition A, which Hellman actively supports (his band will even be playing the campaign’s election night party at Slim’s tonight).
“For once, there is goodwill all around on something,” Hellman said of the school bond, which business groups such Committee on Jobs and progressives such as the SF People’s Organization enthusiastically support.
But he’s ashamed to see SFSOS opposing it, sending messages of concern to the group’s leader, Wade Randlett, and funder, Don Fisher, asking the group to send a message to its list noting that most business groups support it.
“It’s a personal vendetta on the part of the guy who runs SFSOS,” Hellman said.
That guy, Randlett, suddenly started attacking the school district last year when the superintendent was at odds with the school board. Randlett was secretly having an extramarital affair at the time with the superintendent’s spokesperson Lorna Ho (Randlett has since left his wife, Tamsin Randlett, and is still with Ho), which seemed to have been what prompted SFSOS to flip its focus from parks and potholes to the schools. And apparently, Randlett holds a grudge like few others, so he’s urging voters to deny needed school facilities to the kids. It’s a telling testament to the guy and the group that is leading the attacks on Chris Daly and openly supporting challenger Rob Black. It’s not too late to grab a Daly sign from his 16th and Mission HQ and do everything you can to keep this kind of sleaze out of City Hall.
By Steven T. Jones
I just got another call from Warren Hellman, who said he was saddened to see a group he founded but later disavowed — the sleazy conservative attack organization SFSOS — is one of the only groups in town to oppose the school bond measure Proposition A, which Hellman actively supports (his band will even be playing the campaign’s election night party at Slim’s tonight).
“For once, there is goodwill all around on something,” Hellman said of the school bond, which business groups such Committee on Jobs and progressives such as the SF People’s Organization enthusiastically support.
But he’s ashamed to see SFSOS opposing it, sending messages of concern to the group’s leader, Wade Randlett, and funder, Don Fisher, asking the group to send a message to its list noting that most business groups support it.
“It’s a personal vendetta on the part of the guy who runs SFSOS,” Hellman said.
That guy, Randlett, suddenly started attacking the school district last year when the superintendent was at odds with the school board. Randlett was secretly having an extramarital affair at the time with the superintendent’s spokesperson Lorna Ho (Randlett has since left his wife, Tamsin Randlett, and is still with Ho), which seemed to have been what prompted SFSOS to flip its focus from parks and potholes to the schools. And apparently, Randlett holds a grudge like few others, so he’s urging voters to deny needed school facilities to the kids. It’s a telling testament to the guy and the group that is leading the attacks on Chris Daly and openly supporting challenger Rob Black. It’s not too late to grab a Daly sign from his 16th and Mission HQ and do everything you can to keep this kind of sleaze out of City Hall.
I posed a question to my grandson Nicholas Perez, age l2, a math whiz and computer games afficionado,
to figure out for the Bruce blog how long the Iraq War has lasted in comparison to the U.S. involvement in World War II.
He just sent me an email answer, on deadline, for my pre-election blog.
He says that WWII lasted l,328 days from Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, l94l, to VJ day (Victory in Japan) on Aug. l5, l945.
Which means, he says, that Nov. 7, the day of the election, the Bush War in Iraq has lasted as long as did the U.S. involvement in WW II.
Imagine: That ought to be front page news on election day across the land: REPEATING AND UNDERSCORING: THE WAR IN IRAQ HAS LASTED AS LONG AS THE U.S. INVOLVEMENT IN WW II. Vote against Bush and for peace on as many fronts as possible. Vote early and often.
Personal note to Tara and Murali in Chennai, India: Thanks for your call just now on my blog deadline and your encouragment to Sock It To Bush. My prediction is that the U.S. voters will put the Democrats back in power in the House, will win or come very close in the Senate, and will all in all deliver a resounding rebuke to Bush on Iraq.
Postscript: On the non issue of Kerry’s “botched joke”: I found most annoying the people who criticized Kerry, and who ought ought to have known better and were purely grandstanding (starting with Hillary Clinton among the Democrats and John McCain among the Republicans) and the media that took it seriously and helped the Republicans pump up yet another phony campaign issue. They gave the cheap shot a new dimension. b3
By Tim Redmond
Everyone’s having fun with this story: Apparently, the Rob Black campaign in District 6 is paying people $15 an hour to act like volunteers. There’s a great photo on Sfist that sets the scene. Then KPFA sent a reporter to interview Black “volunteers” and got some great stuff. Here’s a partial transcript, thanks to leftinsf.
REPORTER JOSHUA SMITH: On a busy street corner in District 6, campaigners are out in full force. Eric Wilson is wearing an I Black Back Button and standing next to a large poster endorsing the candidate. He says he got involved with the campaign through the Glide Church. But from a glance you would never guess his political stance.
ERIC WILSON: “Allegedly I’m going to be paid fifteen dollars an hour cash. I support Chris Daly, but I’m doing this for Rob Black for the cash. And it’s an oxymoron, but well, you gotta do what you gotta do to eat in this city.”
In other words, Black doesn’t actually have a lot of volunteers, so he’s trying to buy them.
By Steven T. Jones
Jimmy Carter said something truly remarkable on National Public Radio last night. The segment was about how the former U.S. president and his Carter Center are monitoring the elections in Nicaragua, just as they have in 67 other elections around the world over the last two decades.
For her final question, NPR’s Debbie Elliott asked about repeated voting irregularities here in the U.S. and whether maybe we should have international monitors to ensure our elections are free and fair. Carter agreed that “the United States electoral system is severely troubled and has many faults in it. It would not qualify at all for instance for participation by the Carter Center in observing.”
Among other things, the Carter Center requires uniform voting procedures through the country, roughly equal access to the media by major candidates, some kind of federal agency to ensure sound democratic standards, and the poor having equal access to polling places as the rich – none of which exists in the United States.
Think about this for a second: just as our current president is starting wars in the name of spreading democracy, a former president who is widely recognized as the premier international expert on democratic standards says that our system is worse that most others in place around the world. And that statement doesn’t even warrant a headline in the major newspapers on the day before a national election.
By Bruce B. Brugmann (B3)
As the rest of the press (mainstream and alternative) was publishing endorsements and election coverage for Tuesday’s referendum on Bush and Iraq, Mike Lacey, editor in chief of the Village Voice/New Times papers, was down in Los Angeles at the LA Weekly stoking yet another of his signature bloodbaths (see my previous blog below).
Lacey killed the Weekly’s influential and widely read political endorsements, making this election the first time in memory that the Weekly did not run endorsements. He oversaw the firing of News Editor Alan Mittelstaedt and the hiring of Jill Stewart, described by Kevin Roderick in LA Observed as a “Lacey favorite columnist at the old New Times Los Angeles.” Lacey also oversaw the sacking of Harold Meyerson, the highly respected veteran political columnist who was regarded as a Lacey target because he was liberal and activist. (Lacey wouldn’t renew his contract.) And, when Meyerson complained in an email to the staff about a front page story in the current edition in the New Times template, Mike savaged him publicly with a classic New Times rant and rave.
Michael Sigman, former president and publisher of the LA Weekly, made the appropriate comment to LA Observed: “I worked with hundreds of smart writers and editors during nearly 20 years at LA Weekly. Harold Meyerson is one of maybe two or three whom I would describe as a genius. His loss is unfortunate for the paper, and more unfortunate still for LA.”
Sigman was being diplomatic. In my five decades or so in journalism, I do not know of a more vicious public attack by an editor on a staffer. Moreoever, this was not just an attack on Meyerson as a columnist and major Weekly presence for years but it was an attack on the paper, on principled journalism, on the Weekly constituency, and on Los Angeles by the editor of a predatory chain headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona. Here is the lineup that shows the Voice/New Times priorities in the runup to the election:
+Meyerson’s farewell column.
+Meyerson’s email to the LA Weekly staff in which he said, among other things, that “Anyone who spends a nano-second looking at the paper understands that New Times template is already in place, and I know from countless conversations that editorial staffers live in fear of geting the ax if they deviate from it. That’s sad for the city, sad for the paper, and sad for those of you who work there and are in no financial position to leave (a position I understand very well).”
+Lacey’s “Hey Hack” response.
+And my previous blog on Voice/New Times policy of not allowing their papers to endorse–and my critical question arising therefrom: Does Dan Savage or Mike Lacey have the real balls? My vote is for Savage. He got endorsements in every one of his pre-election sex columns run by New Times papers. A bravura performance on pre-election deadline. And Lacey of course was being Lacey. And, thanks to Lacey and his regime, the LA Weekly of Jay Levin, Ron Curran, Harold Meyerson, Mike Sigman, and scores of fine journalists and staffers on a special journalistic mission is gone. Alas. Alas.
Our Town, Our Paper
L.A. and the Weekly, in hindsight and foresight
By HAROLD MEYERSON
Lacey on Meyerson and LA Observed
Dear kids: Meyerson sad about Contreras piece
By Tim Redmond
Late on a Friday, at the slowest possible time in the news cycle, when politicians make moves that they hope will get very little media attention, Mayor Gavin Newsom vetoed a plan to require police foot patrols in high-crime areas. That marks a dramatic shift in his position. Just a few days ago, he was prepared to sign the bill.
The veto sets up a fascinating showdown: Are there eight votes on the board to override the mayor? The measure passed 7-3 on its first round, with only Supervisors Aaron Peskin, Michela Alioto-Pier and Sean Elsbernd in opposition and Jake McGoldrick absent. Willl eight votes hold?
By Tim Redmond
I’m usually not much for political speeches, but Chris Daly has a really nice riff on quality of life in this video of his recent rally at 16th and Mission. His point: It’s easy for people living in million-dollar condos to attack him and complain about the “quality of life” in District 6 (which is downtown shorthand for cracking down on the homeless). But what about the quality of life of all the people who live in residential hotels, who struggle every day, who live on the economic edge? Worth a listen, because it says a lot about why re-electing Daly is such a huge priority.
By Steven T. Jones
I spoke recently with Warren Hellman, the San Francisco investment banker that Business Week called “the Warren Buffet of the West Coast.” He’s a fascinating guy, someone who has drawn the ire of progressives by founding the downtown groups Committee on Jobs and SFSOS, but who has also joined with progressives to support the Healthy Saturdays closures in Golden Gate Park and other measures.
Among other topics, Hellman talked about SFSOS, which is leading the nasty and deceptive attacks on Sup. Chris Daly, just as it did on supervisors Jake McGoldrick and Gerardo Sandoval a couple years ago using mailers so heinous that both Hellman and Sen. Dianne Feinstein walked away from the group, leaving the Gap’s Don Fisher as its primary funder.
“SFSOS started doing the opposite of what I thought they would be doing, so it was fairly easy for me to part company with them. What I thought we were doing is trying to figure out ways to make the city better, not just being an antagonistic, nay-saying, attack organization. I’m not a huge fan of Gerardo Sandoval, but I thought the attacks on him were beyond anything I could imagine ever being in favor of myself. And it was a series of things like that and I said I don’t want anything more to do with this,” Hellman told the Guardian.
Hellman is still friends with Fisher, even though “there’s stuff that we just disagree on.” He considers Fisher a “very charitable man,” but Hellman has less than charitable things to say about SFSOS frontman Wade Randlett.
“If all things were equal, I’d just as soon that SFSOS went away,” Hellman said.
Hellman likes authentic, passionate people and has friends across the political spectrum, such as SEIU’s Josie Mooney. As for Daly, Hellman said, “I admire Chris Daly. I disagree with Chris on a lot of things he believes, but there are also probably a lot of things I would agree with Chris on. And I respect him.”
I put out a call to the alternative press across the country to see if anybody could spot an endorsement or strong political story in pre-election issues of Village Voice/New Times papers. (Scroll to the bottom for some vintage Mike Laceyism and some answers to the pressing question of the day: who has the real balls: Dan Savage or Mike Lacey?
The OC Weekly in Orange County did endorsements this year, but that appeared to be the only one of the l7 Voice/New Times papers that did. I also asked Voice/New Times CEO Jim Larkin and Editor in chief Mike Lacey, as well as the new Voice editor David Blum for their comments and for their rationale for not running endorsements in one of the most important mid-year elections in U.S. history. No reply. Here are a few of the replies that came to me by private email:
From: Ron Kretsch, Art Director, Cleveland Free Times, which competes with the Voice/New Times-owned Cleveland Scene
Sending the entire altweekly industry on a snipe-hunt, Bruce? Niiiiiiice.
(B3 comment: Back where I come from, at Camp Foster on Lake Okoboji in northwest Iowa, we called it whippenpoof hunting. But we never found any.)
Actually, I found something – Derf has this in the obScene this week: Cleveland Scene Election 2006. Then again, you did specify “serious coverage” – yeah, go ahead, post my comment. I doubt I’ll have much crow to eat.
And yeah, we had pretty substantive election coverage – I think in terms of quantity of coverage we actually outdid our election ’04 issue, which by my reckoning has never happened before for a midterm or an off-year. Even some obscure-seeming judicial races got the flashlight shined on ’em. It worked out to be a pretty damn fine issue.
************************
From: an East Coast blogger
Okay, I’ll play. Here’s a story broken by Bob Norman in Broward-Palm Beach that could have a big impact on the gubernatorial race there.
Broward Palm Beach
You won’t find endorsements, of course, because they don’t do any. But you will find coverage of the elections. Bob Norman down in south Florida (who wrote the piece I just sent you) is one of their good reporters on the politics beat.
(B3 comment: Thanks, glad to see an election story in a New Times paper in Florida. But they still didn’t do endorsements. And I’m still looking for someone who can tell me the reason for this policy.)
************************
From: Jonny Diamond , editor in chief of The L Magazine in New York City
Yes, the Savage stuff is in, but it’s the only thing remotely related to the election in the entire issue. This is the cover story: Village Voice Cover Story – remarkable stuff from the country’s formerly foremost alt-weekly on the eve of the most important midterm election in a long, long time.
I’d say this is the final, no-doubt-about-it end of the Voice. As for our own coverage, we’re working on something for Friday… best Jonny Diamond
It is as silly as it seems. The movie stuff is atrocious. The cover stories laughable. And people are noticing. Here’s our endorsement, btw. The L Magazine Endorsements. I’d really appreciate if you could link to this, it deals explicitly with the The Voice’s failure to step up. Thanks, jd
(B3 comment: Perhaps this is a snapshot of the situation in New York. The Voice, a liberal bastion in New York for its entire history, endorser in all elections, didn’t endorse or even run a strong election story in its pre-election issue or an explanation of its knuckling under to the New Times template. However, the L Magazine, a a relatively new arts and entertainment fortnightly, did, happily and with gusto and with every intention of beating the Voice/New Times in every election hereafter. Note its coverage in the link above.)
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From: a Manhattan media watcher
Bruce, they don’t have anyone on staff at the Voice any more who is either competent or even interested in covering local politics. It’s just way too cerebral for any of them now. Sad to say, but it’s all fluffernutter stuff. Anything above 34th Street doesn’t exist.
++++++++++++++
From: Anthony Pignataro (former OC Weekly staffer)
Editor, Maui Time Weekly
This week’s OC Weekly has tons of political coverage, including this list of actual endorsements: OC Weekly
(B3: at last, a Voice/NewTimes paper that made endorsements, the OC Weekly in Orange County. So Will Swaim, a strong liberal editor, joins Dan Savage, the gay sex columnist, as the only two who got endorsements into New Times papers. How did Will do it? I sent him an email but didn’t hear by blogtime.)
************************
From: The Association of Alternative Newsweeklies
Speculation About VVM’s L.A. Moves ‘Simply Silly,’ Lacey Says
From: LA Observed
Dear kids: Meyerson sad about Contreras piece
Lacey on Meyerson and LA Observed
Scene at the Weekly
Stewart gives notice
On Jill Stewart at the Weekly
Big turmoil at the Weekly
(B3: There was so much turmoil at the LA Weekly that it was hard to tell what happened this year. Harold Meyerson “quit” writing his excellent political column and no endorsements appeared in the paper, though the paper has for years been a traditional endorser and many ex-staffers and ex-managers were pushing for endorsements this year.)
Meanwhile, the LA Observed media site summed up the Weekly’s sudden knuckling under to Voice/New Times non endorsement policy: “Since the Weekly has dropped its well-read pre-elecition endorsements, City Beat (B3: the competitive alternative in LA) has jumped in to fill the void. The paper backs Democrats for all the state offices except Governor (no endorsement) and insurance commissioner (Steve Poizner over Cruz Bustamente.) Locally, they recommend yes on H and no on R.” And they give a link to the full list.
Meyerson addressed the issue in a farewell email to the staff (see link above) in which he addresses the New Times template: “The paper’s decision, for the first time since forever, not to run endorsements makes that even clearer (that Lacey/New Times have have forced a reverse in editorial policy). Tha’s unfortunate, but it’s no disgrace. But becoming a tabloid in the New Times model is absolutely a disgrace. The New Times model churns out ‘gotcha’ news stories, it snipes at an undifferentiated establishment, it makes little effort to understand larger social issues at work in a city (that would require deviations from the model), it has a weakness for rants. It produces columns like ‘LA Sniper,’ in the Jill Stewart mode of reducing commentary to drive-by shootings…” (B3: Stewart is the new deputy editor in charge of news and wrote in her last independently syndicated column that
she was “thrilled to be joining the Village Voice Media chain under Mike Lacey.”
More on Lacey’s management style: In a letter responding to Meyerson’s criticism of the LA Weekly (see above link), he sums up: “But the reasons why Meyerson’s contract with LA Weekly was not renewed transcend finance and are on display in his embarrassing note to the staff. His ethical lapses, motivated by decades of cronyism, are aggravated by his insufferable pomposity.
“‘Hey, Kids,’ is his salutation.
” ‘Hey, Hack,’ is my response.”
(B3: Lacey, for all his lathering and steaming, still does not address the fundamental issue of why the New Times and now, sadly, the Voice papers, refuse to endorse. So once again: Is there someone somewhere, inside or outside the Voice/New Times, who can say why their papers do not endorse in any election and in particular in a extraordinarily critical election that amounts to a referendum on Bush, the war, the occupation, and his domestic policies?
What’s Lacey and the New Times afraid of? Of annoying their advertisers? Of giving up control to local chain editors who may (gasp!) be more liberal than the gang in Phoenix? Are they worried their endorsments would disclose just how cynical Lacey and the New Times are in their politics and in their view of the cities in which they have papers? MIke? Mike? You sound real big and tough, writing from a safe haven in corporate headquarters in Phoenix, and attacking as a hack a highly respected liberal LA Weekly veteran.
(Could you explain why Dan Savage, the gay sex columnist, has the only real endorsements in all the Voice/New Times papers in his sex column (excepting the OC Weekly, bless their hearts)? Why do you and the Voice/New Times contiinue to duck the tough issues and endorsements in election after election as a matter of institutional policy? As you will recall, Dan went into Pennsylvania at a critical moment in the campaign and gave Sen. Rick Santorum some much justified trouble on the gay family issue. if Santorum goes down, Dan can take some credit. What can you and the Voice/New Times say about the way you wimped through another election? Why does Dan have the balls and you do not? Mike?
B3, working hard in San Francisco to create and perpetuate San Francisco Values (note: SF Chronicle head yesterday: THREE DIRTY WORDS: SAN FRANCISCO VALUES, front page, lead story, big type, no blushing)
“I bought it for myself but never used it,” he said. “I was tempted, but I never used it.” – Ex-National Association of Evangelicals prez (and George W. Bush bud) Ted Haggard to reporters regarding his alleged meth use, 11/03/06
That’s kind of like saying he smoked pot but didn’t inhale — except way more hilarious, ain’t it??
If you’re following the absolutely delightful Ted Haggard kerflaffle (sfgate.com has the latest AP story here), have a look at my interview with one of the directors of Jesus Camp, which features jabs at a pre-scandal Haggard (weirdly hammy on-camera, he’s the only featured subject to publicly denounce the film).
By Steven T. Jones
Re-reading the article I linked to in my last post reminded me to remind y’all about an event from earlier this year that goes to the heart of Rob Black’s close ties to downtown developers and why he can’t be trusted. In the incident described in this article, Black was the Alioto-Pier board aide who worked with those five developer attorneys to craft legislation designed to kill the downtown parking limitations sought by livable city advocates and Planning Director Dean Macris, all at the demand of Don Fisher, the Republican who founded the Gap and uses his money to bankroll SFSOS and the attacks on Chris Daly. My article doesn’t mention Black by name, but I have the e-mails in which he discusses the legislation and its wording with these developer attorneys. And if you want to hear Rob Black fumble to address the issue, listen to his endorsement interview here.
By Steven T. Jones
There’s a fascinating mix of videos about Sup. Chris Daly on You Tube these days. You can hear Chris speak or people speak about him, or you can watch political ads with stark contrasts between the Daly lovers and haters. The ads for him are funny and whimsical, the ones hitting him are dark, scary, misleading, and in one case, racist. They say Daly “never passed a single law to combat crime,” even though he chaired the committees that passed two budgets filled with crime-fighting measures, as well as placing the crime-fighting Proposition A on the June ballot, which narrowly failed because it was opposed by Mayor Gavin Newsom, opponent Rob Black, and the pro-Black Police Officers Association (which was loathe to spend $10 million on violence prevention programs instead of just more cops and overtime, which is the Newsom/Black strategy). But the funniest accusation is how Daly is now in the pocket of downtown interests, with one video showing Daly morphing into former Mayor Willie Brown, who Daly has a storied history of fighting on behalf of the anti-downtown forces. Yes, it’s true that Daly has gotten some developer money in this election, but that’s only because he’s made himself the go-to person for facilitating projects by developers who are willing to provide the maximum community benefits and affordable housing payments — which is what progressives demand of developers. Even downtown interests like SPUR have said this is true (the whole story is here). The bottom line: Black and his downtown buddies (from mentor Jim Sutton to SFSOS to BOMA) know D6 voters want someone to stand up to downtown, so they’re throwing a bunch of smoke and misinformation up in the air to confuse the issue. Don’t be fooled…but enjoy the show.
