Disinfo Rehab

Special Note: Don't forget to check out the Direct Mail Disinfo Rehab Archive with mail from the 2006 primary election, recently featured at SF's Usual Suspects website!

Whenever you pass a political money reform bill, the road to Hell gets a new paving of unintended consequences. Take Proposition 34, which was supposedly going to limit "big money" in elections for state office.

We passed "limits" which were designed to keep "big money" out of elections, and it did have the effect of limiting large unlimited contributions, which are apparently evil in and of themselves, out of campaigns by candidates for office. One problem: no one found a legal, Constitutional way to limit efforts "independent" of candidates by those "big money" folks to speak loudly, carry big sticks, and have an incredible amount of influence in an election.

We've gone through 3 cycles under the new regime, and as both a manager and observer of Assembly races, I have to say that the influence of outside groups has increased ten-fold, as backers of previous reforms had hoped. Now, when a candidate runs for office, he or she has to pray to the God of their choice that assorted interest groups not only support them, but will spend untold bucks on their behalf, and pray that they'll do something that's helpful to their campaigns.

In 2002, we saw trial lawyers, eager to take a posthumous hit at then Assemblyman Lou Papan, spend uncounted millions on behalf of Gene Mullin, to "punish" the daughter of Lou Papan for not toeing the line enough in his time in office. While Gene Mullin's campaign claimed it was "all them" when they won, the fact was if it was not for untold spending by outside groups, we may or may not have had a different result.

Likewise, in 2006, we have the political gang war that is the 12th Assembly district primary. No less than 11 allied "independent expenditure" committees (who oddly enough seem to have the same candid photos in their ads as the candidate does) are picking on Janet Reilly, for reasons obvious and not so obvious. For all the "experience" people talk about, it seems strange that the only thing people helping a candidate can do is to pump out mail that is more about hype than substance.

There is, however, a simple cure for this disease, one that does not require demolishing the First Amendment, passage of new Road to Hell legislation, or even taxpayer funding of politician's races. It relies solely on common sense, and a candidate's values.

All a candidate for state office needs to do is to read the publicly available records on independent expenditures available at the California Secretary of State's office and then compose a letter similar to the one below:

Dear [Insert Name of Fat Cats and IEs Here]

My name is [State Your Name] and I am running for [dogcatcher/assembly/state senate/whatever] in California. Although state law forbids me from having any say in any potential "independent expenditures" and even whether I want you to do so or not, it does not forbid me from reading public reports coming out during and after the election.

As such, I will be reviewing the public spending reports of any and all "independent expenditure" committees during the election, and afterwards. I will note who has donated to said efforts, and I will note how much was spent on such efforts, and I will note which consultants worked on said efforts.

When all such efforts are reviewed, I will be sending a letter to any and all involved telling them that while their work on my behalf may or may not be appreciated, that said, those involved with said "independent expenditures" will not be allowed to speak with me, or my staff, or any committee I am affiliated with, while I serve in office.

As such, you are free to continue whatever you feel is necessary to aid or abet me or my opposition. However, you will not be able to speak with my or my staff if I am elected to office.

Sincerely,

[State Your Name]

Yeah, I know, pie in the sky dreaming. But think about it. Such a letter at the end of a campaign would allow a candidate to have it both ways. ONCE. With the threat of these kinds of missives though, I wonder how many well heeled folks would be eager to fund such campaigns in the future?

More importantly, what would happen if the public demanded their candidates for office to subscribe to such a code of conduct, voluntarily?

Perhaps then the dreams of reformers might be realized, and the Road to Hell Paving Crew might get a break for once. Peace and Justice would reign and a Golden Age of Politics would govern us better than any Utopian novelist's dreams.

Ok maybe not. But can you imagine what things might have been like in So Called Liberal San Francisco if public pressure had brought this to bear? Maybe then our 12th AD candidates would have debated issues, instead of traded posturing.

Dare to dream.

Posted by Greg Dewar at 10:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

The first step of our Disinfo Rehab project is up and online! Thanks to good friends on the Peninsula and in San Francisco, as well as some trusty campaign volunteers, I've posted the first of what will be many entries into a Political Direct Mail Web Archive that you, the citizen, can review in advance of California's Primary Election on June 6th. (Temporarily, PDF files submitted to the arcive are featured here while we get Flickr to cooperate!)

Currently the archive features entries from State Senate Candidate Mike Nevin , who has some of the most novel mail pieces, evoking an earlier era in campaign themes, as well as a piece I picked up at a street fair last weekend from the campaign of Fiona Ma, who is running in Assembly District 12.

More from our gubernatorial candidates, our friends in high and low places, and those running for other offices will be featured as the days go by. You may also make submissions by email by sending me an email with your reasonably sized JPEGs or PDFs of stuff you find.

Oddly enough, because I recently re-registered only a few months ago into the new house I moved into, I'm not getting the volume of doubleplusungoodmail I usually get. So, if you're looking at that steaming pile of dead trees, and thinking of junking it, think again!

I'm offering a drink bounty to voters for new and unusual pieces of mail, in particular those sent out by special interests influencing the outcome of many of the Legislative elections in California, where so many people are running for ever so many offices.

Enjoy the archive and keep coming back as more images (and more commentary) are added to the new disinfobabble and artistic licenses issued by today's politickers. Consultants are also welcome to submit pieces they are proud of, as well.

UPDATE: Big updates coming this weekend. Meanwhile, check this article out discussing the increasingly flat out false mail going out to the public.

UPDATE 2 - May 28th: More pieces have been added from the Reilly/Ma race and the Yee/Nevin/Papan race....anyone wishing to submit pieces they've received should email me with their entries...thanks!

Oh and some advice for the volunteers eager to tell us about their candidates - the moment you put a handout or a piece of unauthorized crap in a mailbox, not only do you earn bad karma, but you are also committing a federal crime. Just last night I found two piecesfor a candidate for DCCC shoved in my mailbox at home in the Inner Sunset. Not smart. Kids, learn the rules and play it safe, ok?

Posted by Greg Dewar at 11:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (3)

Much is made when a personally wealthy candidate runs for office about how, by the miracle of “spending lots of money,” they can automatically win office. Steve Westly’s campaign not only benefits from this conventional “wisdom” – it’s an active part of the campaign’s message.

What pundits, politickers, and the like tend to forget is that part of winning a campaign is having the money to pay for what you need to win – but that the other part is how you spend your money. And in the case of Steve Westly, our multi-millionaire Richie Cunningham running for class president, it's becoming clear that the how of his campaign is starting to kill whatever advantage, cash-wise, this guy had.

Last night I caught the latest spat of ads from Westly on TV, and they were laughable at best, pathetic at worst. We are less than three weeks away from a pretty significant primary election, and what is the Westly campaign blowing tons of cash on? Ads about whether Phil Angelides is running a "negative campaign." (Don't try looking here for them - I guess they don't mind putting them on the air, but they sure didn't put them on their own site.)

So,umm, let me get this straight. This is the big issue millions of Californians are concerned about in this year's gubernatorial election? I guess that whole affordable housing/jobs/economy/environment/education/taxes thing isn't the main issue at the kitchen table this season.

No, it's whether "Mean Old Phil" is playing by some imaginary Marquess de Queensbury rules, and rather than move on and just tell people about why he's the better candidate, he's spending money talking about something no real voters give a crap about and tosses in a lie about Angelides' tax plan that's patently false. Hmm. Sounds like someone broke his own promise about those Queensbury rules.

Putting aside for a moment whether Phil or Steve is the bestest Democrat boy running, there's a bigger issue here. If Steve Westly can't handle a random, unscripted question from the peanut gallery, or a few jabs from a fellow Democrat, how the Hell is he going to handle going up against Gov. Doofinator and his huge team of spinmeisters, politickers and a massive state funded disinfo ops team, much less the many millions in independent expenditures from allied right wing groups that will toss out crap far worse than he's ever had to deal with?

No wonder this guy barely beat McClintock in 2002. Perhaps after the election, Westly and Senator Huffington, President Perot, Governor Checchi, and the rest of the rich geniuses can get together and have a beer about those Queensbury rules.

Don't forget to send in your political junk mail so we can do some disinfo rehab prior to the election! Send me a note and we'll get it on Flickr ASAP!

Posted by Greg Dewar at 8:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last weekend, mail ballots in the California Primary were mailed out to voters, which means the first wave in what is going to be an avalanche of political junk mail is starting to make its way through the US Postal System. A primary such as the one we have now, where just about every term-limited politician is running for every other office on the ballot, makes it even more ominous.

This is also a chance to observe the power of dead trees vs. television. That's because TV ads are seen by "everyone." Heck, you can go on YouTube.com and see ads by the ever telegenic Steve Westly, the humorous Phil Angelides and more. You can even scrutinize the oh-so-clever ad by Fiona Ma, driving around town in a shiny new Prius! How enviro-friendly! (I wonder if she actually owns a PC-Prius or if they just rented it....frankly I'd be more impressed to see a candidate slog through the district on the N Judah, in a TV ad, complete with weirdos and stalled trains, but I digress).

Now here's the thing about TV ads - the reason it's so easy for snarky bloggers, politicos and the local press to pick apart these little gems is because they are so accessible. Direct mail, however, is not. Everyone is getting different pieces of mail depending on where they live, and what their past voter history (if any) is. More to the point, by the time anyone in the press sees anything earth-shattering or nasty, the election's over.

This time, however, you can help particpate in a good old fashioned Disinformation Rehab for the Primary. If you start to get a nice big pile of steaming junk mail, don't recycle it. Instead, send me an email and tell me what you've received in the mail.

If it is something I do not already have, you put it in the mail and send it to me, and I buy you a coffee or other beverage of some sort somehow. I'll scan in the best of the bunch and post a gallery on Flickr, and we can all give these guys and gals a once-over they don't usually get.

And besides, it'll be fun! Really!

Posted by Greg Dewar at 3:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was all set to write all sorts of really great articles for my new site. But EarthLink had other plans. So rather than write about the upcoming big debate tonight between Steve Westly and Phil Angelides, or about any one of the many articles I've written, I'm instead devoting today's missive to telling the world that Earthlink sucks.

There are other colorful metaphors I could use, but why get wordy?

For almost three weeks now I've had no Internet service at home. And, as I'm now working two jobs, one an all day on site consulting gig, and keeping up with my other clients after hours, this has been more than an annoyance. It's costing me real money, in the form of lost income because I can't make the deadlines I normally can when I work at night.

Even more infuriating has been the true incompetence of Earthlink customer service, primarily based in Outer Godknowswhereistan, who can barely keep up with a conversation in English, much less talk or do anything about the actual problem. And of course, they don't wanna give you your money back for screwing up. But they do know about looking at modem lights!

It seems I'm not the only one with this mysterious outage, and I've been trolling Google and finding plenty of horror stories. What amazes me is that these morons are now going to be in charge of San Francisco's WiFi experiment with Google. Talk about doing the "crane" of stupidity.

Yes, I know there are "alternatives." All of which are not much better, since the companies are all so big, they don't give a tinker's cuss about any one customer, or providing any reliable service. They don't have to. One person quitting and going to Yet Another Crappy Telco means nothing to them, or the competition, and they know it.

Whatever. I'm sure today when the Genius from SBC/ATT/Earthlink/Comcast/Whatever.com will do something. I certainly hope so. At this point I don't really have much "consumer choice" no matter what happens.

Will someone please explain how large, bureaucratic, slow, and incompetent organizations such as these are better than their ilk in a socialist system? Or at least how they differ? Or how I as the customer benefit from dealing with these morons?

Thanks!

UPDATE:The incompetence of these people is stunning. The SBC guy came out and verified that nothing was wrong with the acutal phone lines (Earthlink sent him out here, not at my request) so it's clearly an Earthlink issue, not a user issue.

But they insist on calling me back with more BS about "modem lights" and of course most of the time it's someone on another continent who has no idea what they're doing. And of course, half the time they mysteriously drop the call as I'm being transferred from Godknowswhereistan to the US reps (who really aren't any brighter, but at least I can understand what they're saying).

I'm doing what I should have done when I moved in, and am getting Comcast's internet service. Sure it's a monopoly here in town, and sure, they're not that much better, but at least it works. Almost 4 weeks and they still can't get it up and running. They sure do have a lot of excuses though. I wish I had a job where I could offer up BS and excuses and still get paid!

You'd think their slow, 384/128 DSL with cheap-ass modem would be easy to maintain, but I guess not. And these geniuses are supposedly going to run the City's Free WiFi? Why even bother? We should go straight to the rock throwing and effigy burning now, and save us all the wait. Besides, the flagmakers can make up some "earthlink" flags we can burn

Next time someone asks me to take a "stress test" downtown I'm telling them I don't need a "test." Earthlink ensures I'm stressed!

Posted by Greg Dewar at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was wondering why watching Phil Angelides andSteve Westly seemed so familiar.

At first I thought it was because I remembered meeting Steve Westly when in 1989 he ran against Gov. Jerry Brown for Democratic Party Chairman (he lost that race in 1989, and backed Phil's opponent when Jerry quit). Or maybe it was because smilin' Phil was in all those house party videos in 1992 when Democrats stopped losing in California.

Then I realized what it was - both men are channeling the spirit of former Governor Mike Dukakis in their campaigns. Now, unlike some, I don't say this to be mean, but more as an observation. It's not a bad thing to me, but I don't know if it's the winning plan for beating Gov. Doofinator in California in 2006.

Now obviously, in Angelides' case, as a fellow Greek-American politician, it's natural that both Mike and his cousin, Olympia D would come to his aid, and that's fine. I mean, I actually saw the former Governor give a hell of a speech to the West LA Democrats in 2004 that was really something. Nothing at all like his cold fish campaign for President. Sure, no one else did, but anyway.

And Westly, as a loyal Democrat, helped out Mike's campaign as did a lot of folks, and a year later ran for that coveted state Party Chairman job in 1989 (easily a crap-tacular year for Democrats). Hooray.

But when you read the policies and stump speeches, and even the styles of these guys, you can't help but think of Mike Dukakis, with a dash of Gray D. and begin to wonder how it is we have incumbent Doofinator on the ropes, who is more and more likely to get re-elected....because the C-list is running against him?

Take Westly's prize position on how to get "more money" for the state without "raising taxes" - get a really fired up California IRS agent army on board to get all the money the State is allegedly owed. Sure, that'll work. OF COURSE there is so much "owed money" we can make all our dreams come true, painlessly. Now, I'm sure he's a good guy and means well, but this is straight out of the Dukakis '88 platform!

I'm sure it sounded good in the issues room at Westly HQ. How many people would like the chances of an audit to increase 10 fold is probably really high. And I"m sure that there are so many deadbeats in California, we can just magically pay for free stuff for everyone, and not raise taxes on people like, well, Steve Westly, who made a killing in dotcom stock options.

Considering he can't even handle random question from some goofy blogger I wonder if he has enough money to get some better policy folks and perhaps some personality lessons before November. Add to that his paraphrasing of Lloyd Bentsen's witty retort in his convention speech, and you can see why people get worried.

Angelides is a good guy, and to be sure has been playing a straight Democratic political campaign. His positions against the Doofinator have been pretty straightforward, and against an equally standard politico, like the GOP usually nominates, he might win.

But he's not he's going to be up against a Hollywood star who can lie, spin, and cheat his way like no other. How "nerd" beats "cheesy star" is beyond me. I seem to remember it wasn't the brightest kid in class that got elected school president, it was the popular kid who cracked jokes and flirted with the girls and bs-ed the teachers.

It's going to be a long campaign season. I wonder why it is the alleged "A-List" Democrats that supposedly exist decided not to run for Governor this year. Do they know something we (and Angelides, Westly, and the Doofinator) don't?

Posted by Greg Dewar at 10:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thanks to a 10-day long internet outage at home, this got posted late. Earthlink sucks.

Well, it's finally over. The 2006 Democratic Star Trek/Wars/Gate Convention is done, the myriad of tchotchkes, stickers, and campaign sundries are in the dustbin of history, and everyone's going home...some happy, some sad, and some who were just happy to get all the free "stuff" at the convention.

But the unreality of the event was truly that of a Comi-Con or Star Trek convention, because for all the hype and shenanigans inside the convention, and all the fiercely passionate run ins between rival campaigns, the fact is very few actual voters know who most of the people on the June ballot are, much less who they'd actually like to see in office.

In the end, the passionate fights between the two titans of the Democratic ticket, Steve Westly and Phil Angelides, came off more like the never-ending debates of lore: Kirk Vs. Picard, Star Wars 77-82 vs Star Wars Prequels, or that big debate over Silver Surfer from a few years ago. Lots of noise and hype, but most people on the outside don’t really know what these folks are talking about. But if you dare say you’re not that interested in their cause or candidate, people look at you like you just committed a war crime.

Two other things struck me about this convention that kept the unreal feeling in the convention hall – the almost unanimous silence amongs Big Party Hacks and Politicos about the May 1st rallies, and the fact that term limits has been an abysmal failure at getting “new citizen politicians” into office, which we were constantly promised.

Sure, Steve Westly could play “Oye Como Va” when he got on stage and discuss his wife’s immigration at age 5 to the US, but you didn’t hear him say the words “May 1st” anytime in front of the cameras. Phil Angelides, when asked if people should walk off the job, gave a non-answer answer. You’d think that with millions of people taking time off work to demonstrate about ANY issue might warrant some mention, but I guess the consultants were too busy being scared to figure out what to say, and the politicos were simply not used to something happening that was a true surprise. I’m sure their pollsters and predictors didn’t predict this wave of activity a year ago.

But most of all, this convention was a living example of why term limits are a total failure. Instead of pushing the career politicians out of office, and replacing them with some mythical “citizen politcker” who would serve a few years, then go home, we have a mess of people running for office, and before they’re done with one job, jumping to go get another.

It’s bad enough when we have musical chairs at the statewide level – but the statewide electorate keeps the pols and their shenanigans at bay. At the state Senate and Assembly level, multiple open seat races turned many of these caucuses into some nasty death-cage matches. The joke being, of course that the voting delegates for this convention were picked by party insiders, politicians, politickers, and apparatchiks some time ago, so really, there were no big surprises as to the outcomes of caucuses.

Sure, some put up some token resistance in the form of petitions presented to delegates, but after some of those efforts (usually by the super-lefty types) were so over-the-top insane, by late evening such efforts dissipated. A true moment of hilarity – zealous petition pushers for candidates who were hitting up the scores of formal attired highschoolers at the center for the prom. The geeks and the popular kids clashed but the highschoolers played it cool.

A newcomer candidate such as Janet Reilly or Steve Westly or any one of a number of Democratic hopefuls new to politics who were not the pick of People Who Go To These Things All The Time was bound to have problems, policies and positions be damned. Never doubt the sense of entitlement Democratic incumbents and their supporters have when they’re jockeying for a new job. And never doubt how many nasty tricks they can pull – even when they are totally unneeded.

Anyone looking for a defining moment in the history of California politics was disappointed by the proceedings. But anyone looking for convention intrigue, geek style, had plenty to take in. If they were looking for much of their Democratic legislative leadership, they were not to be found, as they were all at Pebble Beach courting large donors.

But that’s a story no one seemed to want to talk about. Odd. Oh well!

Posted by Greg Dewar at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)