for what it’s worth: my 2008 endorsements
Hot on the heels of the acquisition of my very first Employer Identification Number, I now bring you the totally unprecendented and utterly unwarranted:
2008 Election Endorsements
(Alameda County, CA, USA)
Methodology: Since I found I had next to no association or encounters with ANY of the names on the ballot mailed to me, I immediately set about acquiring information in the only manner immediately available to me: GOOGLE. May he who hath the best website with good SEO ranking, win.
My election criteria may appear ridiculous to some, but given the political complexities I could never hope to adequately apprise myself of in time for November 4th, especially given my upcoming international travel requirements, I’ve decided to become a single-issue voter, for the most part, and give strong preference to those candidates who take the Information Age seriously. Furthermore, for candidates who appear to have more in their brains going on than just the basic “I will do a good job and get the community involved and kick people’s butts” — those with creative, scientific, or philosophical ideas they’re willing to spill on the web and hopefully take action on in office — my esteem rises.
Anyway, on with the show.
1. President: Obama / Biden, Dem.
This is first president I will have ever voted for. I’m going to make damn sure he beats McCain. I don’t know anything about the other candidates. I thought about looking, but I honestly don’t want to “throw away my vote” and “waste my time” getting acquainted with 3rd-party candidates in this race. I need to conserve all the time I can for playing Rock Band 2.
I have, however, spent considerable time ingesting Obama and McCain rhetoric, as well as the little Palin and Biden, um, chatter I could stand. I’ve been an Obama supporter since well before the DNC; he’s the only candidate I have heard speak in a reasonable fashion on my two big ticket items, and he’s all over the intarwebs, and goshdarnit we need a President who digs Science.
2. 9th Congressional District: James M. Eyer, Lib.
Listed as “scientist / economist” on the ticket next to a Republic “supervisor of a nonprofit” and a Democratic “member of congress”, as a member of SEFORA, I can’t pass up a vote for a devotee of reason. (Hmm, but is HE a member of SEFORA? I’ll have to find out.) The fact that he’s a Libertarian and probably won’t win vexes me not at all; in fact, all the more reason to vote that way. The other two candidates pose no compelling positives (other than that Barbara Lee wants a “Department of Peace” yeah that sounds nice whatever), though Hargrave has displayed himself as scientifically illiterate so that’s a negative.
I dunno. SCIENCE!! And, more-than-two-parties!! Ahem.
3. 9th State Senate District: Loni Hancock, Dem.
Hancock has a nice website that comes up second in Google, right after her .gov link, making it easy to find what she stands for. She apparently puts environmental issues first — I get that from her “mission statement”, the first bit of text on the site. Republican candidate Claudia Bermudez has her own Wikipedia entry in which her major defining traits revolve around her Nicaraguan father fighting commies during the Cold War. I later found a rather positive blog entry about her naming her an “anti-communist” and quoting her as follows:
“My father fought the communists in the mountains of Nicaragua, so I can certainly fight a communist here wearing high heels.”
Uh, yeah… you go girl. Way to live in the now.
Marsha Feinland, “retired teacher”, of the Peace of Freedom party, temporarily raised my interest, but failed to keep it when I saw no immediate evidence on her site of real experience or knowledge of how to get stuff done — a mere impression from 1 minute of browsing, but one that bears out upon semantic inspection of the party name itself.
4. 16th Assembly District: Sandre Swanson, Dem.
Swanson represents himself on the web; businessman James “Jim” Faison does not. In fact the little I can find about Faison suggests that his priorities include the pursuit of offshore drilling, the building of more dams, and the further incriminalization of illegal immigrants. Boo. A “businessman” in this day and age should know better than to neglect the web. NEXT!!!
5. Superior Court Judge, Office #9: Dennis Hayashi.
Well, Daly and Hayashi both have nice web pages, although Hayashi’s is nicer and he’s endorsed by the Sierra Club (for what it’s worth). Minor points deducted from Hayashi for putting campaign signs all over Oakland (Oakland disallows postings of any kind, a point driven home by the ubiquitous “Keep Oakland Beautiful” stickers). Not nearly enough to sway me towards Phil Daly, Deputy District Attorney, who has a blog — yes very 21st century Phil, they’ll love that — which apparently serves no other purpose than to tell me that “crime is Oakland’s number 1 concern” and then to list all of the endorsements he’s gotten lately… which you can already see on his website. Meh. I’ll take the Public Interest Attorney over the Deputy DA.
6. City of Oakland Councilmember, at Large: Kerry Hamill.
I was honestly torn on this one. Both Kerry Hamill, a School Board Member, and Rebecca Kaplan, the Transit Director At-Large, seem perfectly good for the job, with lots of good experience, good priorities, and good reasoning skills to match. Hamill focuses much more on crime than Kaplan, who (unsurprisingly) prioritizes transit, but no one could deny the equivalent import of both. I had to make a pure 21st century cyber-decision. Hamill has a video interview posted on her website which allowed me to do some stretching while I listened to her explain her platform and her approach to solving problems. I like stretching. Hamill wins.
7. AC Transit District Director, At Large: Joyce Roy.
Neither Roy nor incumbent Chris Peeples has a real web presence to speak of, so research falls to hearsay. Read the following excerpt from an article in the Berkeley Daily Planet by this retired architect and long-time transit activist:
I was on a Van Hool bus with the AC Transit boardmember who has been the chief advocate for these buses, when a passenger with two canes had to get to one of the few no-step seats that are not near the door. It took some time as it was crowded and people had to help him while shouting at the driver to not start moving before he got seated. In talking to the boardmember afterwards, I pointed out this example of how cumbersome they are and he replied, “but you see people do manage.”
Yes, “people do manage” to overcome many obstacles. But why should they have to because of bad design. But since AC Transit primarily has a captive audience, people who have no other choices, they have to keep on riding buses that ignore their comfort and safety.
Come on, no contest! Sorry, Peeples; all your track records are belong to this cranky old bus-riding senior citizen who understands the design of everyday things.
8. East Bay Municipal Utility District Director, Ward 5: Susi Ostlund.
Ostlund writes a blog, she critiques the current watershed and stands against (or at least would strongly resist) building new dams, and seems to have the businesswoman’s acumen to treat water consumers like good customers rather than miserable beggards. But again, I only know what I can glean from the web, and all I know about incumbent Doug Kinney comes to him having a Sierra Club endorsement and professing to prioritize “continue fighting for water quality”. Erm, isn’t that the job description itself? I’m unimpressed. Plus, no website. Baleeted!
Man I don’t know, Executive Plumber-in-Chief? Can I just write in “Mario-and-Luigi”?
I’m tired and I want to watch more John Adams. Ahh for the days of politics roused by such classic rhetoric as “join or die!”
Thus ends my first-ever Election Endorsements Editorial, bringing you the finest in stream-of-consciousness snap-judgement reporting.
For more information on my frame of mind when making these snap judgements, you may like to read Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell.
