The Way I Hope It Turns Out

I’ve always liked Jerry Brown. Perhaps that’s why I want Alex Tourk to sign-on to Jerry’s gubernatorial campaign. A few advantages will accrue to Jerry with Alex’s strategic brain on his side.

First of all, Alex knows the Newsom operation inside and out, and as it stands now, Newsom may be the candidate to beat.

Second, most of the staff of Alex’s Ground Floor Public Affairs also possess inside knowledge of the comings and goings in City Hall.

With Alex at the helm, this translates into a formidable strategic and tactical force. Probably the single most important element in developing strategies and tactics is an intimate knowledge of the opponent, his personality, his reactive tendencies, his preferred modes of operation, his weaknesses, and his strengths.

Of weaknesses, Newsom has many, not the least of which is his tendency to flashes of anger in moments of stress. As I’ve mentioned before, his behavior regarding Dan Noyes is a classic example of his often petulant reactions.

Of his strengths, not many are known to me, although I will grant that he presents himself well in public when he is able to control a situation. At the state and national political levels, he will have little if any control over events. Certainly, he will face a media that will not color him with nice, soft, neutral language.

If his handlers haven’t drilled him in controlling his outward hostility to hard questions, he’ll be dead in the water about the time he leaves the serenity of the Bay and enters the rough waters of the Pacific, which isn’t calm at all despite its misleading label.

One thing you can bank on: Alex and his staff of seasoned campaigners know everything I’ve enumerated and more.

On the potentially negative side, doubts could arise about the very experienced staff we’ve been discussing. With recent experience in the Newsom administration and actively campaigning for him in 2007, what might we make of the fact that they wholeheartedly gave Newsom their all so recently?

Can they easily switch loyalties? If they can, what does that say about politics? Is it merely a game that only a gullible public plays with sincerity while the politicians sit back and laugh?

I suspect that the public is certainly gullible. I also suspect that a majority of our politicians are quite cynical, especially after they’ve played the game awhile.

Let’s hope that Alex’s group defies the stereotypical political gamer and works wholeheartedly for Jerry Brown if Alex signs on with him.

Technorati Tags: Alex Tourk,Gavin Newsom,2010 Gubernatorial Race,Jerry Brown,Ground Floor Public Affairs

Strategic Advantage

Following up on my immediately preceding post, I’ve researched the matter a little further and concluded that Jerry Brown will have a strong strategic advantage over Gaston Noisome in the governor’s race if he manages to secure the services of Alex Tourk.

In addition to having Tourk himself on his team, a fact bound to unnerve el Gavo, Jerry will have the benefit of the entire staff of Ground Floor Public Affairs, a group of individuals not only with substantial relevant campaign experience behind them but also an in-depth knowledge of the mayor himself and his style of management.

Here are the members of Ground Floor Public Affairs and a capsule of their experience working with Newsom and his team. You can check their full biographies at the link above.

Patrick Collum
Worked in the San Francisco Mayor’s Office and the Gavin Newsom Campaign for Mayor in 2007.

Justin Roja
Two years with Newsom’s office as a Liaison to Supervisory Districts 1, 2, 7, and the Recreation and Parks Department.

Aaron Goldsmith
Worked in the San Francisco Mayor’s Office.

Britt Gerhard
Worked in the offices of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and on the Newsom for Mayor Campaign.

Jacob Saperstein
Field Director of the Newsom for Mayor Campaign in 2007, helping raise more than $600,000 before the December 31, 2006, filing deadline.

And of course Alex Tourk with his brain and likability and more than a decade in the public sector and on four mayoral campaigns.

The Ground Floor staff also includes other highly-qualified professionals who didn’t serve in Newsom’s office or on his campaigns but nonetheless possess a record of successful campaign experience. These include:

Alexander Wong
Has worked on local, state, and federal campaigns.

Jordana Stein
Worked on Capitol Hill, on John Kerry’s campaign, and on various national issues-oriented campaigns.

In our next post, we’ll cover the advantages of having a staff like this with you, and we’ll mention some pitfalls.

Note: With these brief excerpts from the Ground Floor Public Affairs website, I sincerely trust that I’m within existing copyright laws and journalistic standards of fair use.

Technorati Tags: Alex Tourk,Ground Floor Public Affairs,Gavin Newsom,Jerry Brown,2010 California Governor’s Race

Brown versus The Newster?

If Alex Tourk casts his lot with Jerry Brown for Governor, a possibility according to M&R, the race should be quite invigorating. Politics has become boring lately.

Given Alex’s participation, the contest would probably boil down to a battle between the strategic minds of Eric Jaye for Team Newsom and Alex for Team Brown. Under these circumstances, the election could become a classic case study for poly sci texts.

But even with Eric Jaye for the Gavster, Team Brown would have a distinct advantage: Alex Tourk. His image, his face, his presence within Newsom’s field of vision will be enough to rattle Newskie.

In fact, a real, live Alex isn’t necessary. Alex could simply license a life-sized poster of himself for placement everywhere His Gabness goes.

Even better, Alex could include a photo of himself on all of Jerry’s campaign materials in lieu of Jerry’s.

What about that other guy? The one from LA? With Alex lined up with Brown, all eyes will be on San Francisco. Sorry, Tony.

I have a hunch, however, that Alex is too nice a guy to play dirty politics, even against el Gavo.

Too bad. Politics needs a cataclysmic event or two. What’s mundane life all about without a little excitement now and then?

Technorati Tags: Gavin Newsom,Alex Tourk,Jerry Brown

Jackie Speier’s Staff

Now that Jackie Speier has won an overwhelming victory in the Special Election to replace Tom Lantos, she is busily engaged in selecting her loyal staff.

I have advance, super secret, loyal insider knowledge of her Top Five picks. Here they are.

• Alex Tourk. Chief of the whole ball of wax. He’s waffling, though. He’d take a hell of a pay cut.
• Sweet Melissa. Staff Attorney and Blogger in Chief. Her primary task will be to bring a serio-amusing perspective to Beltway idiocy.
• Gavin Newsom. Empty Suit in Chief. Every legislator needs a front person who is both hot and able to emit an endless stream of meaningless sounds.
• George Bush. Supervisor of Empty Suits.
• Me. Keeper of the Wet Noodle.
• Just kidding, Jackie. Best of luck!
• Technorati Tags: Jackie Speier,Gavin Newsom,Chris Daly,Sweet Melissa,Olympic Torch

Meet Jackie Speier, Congresswoman, 12th Representative District

Here are three dates to remember:

April 8. Special Election to fill the vacancy left by the passing of Congressman Tom Lantos of California’s 12th Representative District.

April 9 (Presumed). The date Jackie Speier will depart SFO on a flight to D.C.

April 10 (Presumed). The date Jackie will take her seat as a new Representative serving the Bay Area.

The preceding may sound optimistic, but it is a quite realistic assessment of the probable outcome of the election, which in my judgement is about 99 percent in Jackie’s favor at the moment.

Still, 1% is a matter to think about. In politics, stuff happens. To prevent that remote possibility, all voters in the 12th District, which includes the Southwestern part of San Francisco plus all of San Mateo County, are encouraged to turn out and offer their support to Jackie.

If she receives 50% plus 1 of the vote on April 8, she will automatically become a member of the House of Representatives. If not, the top two vote getters will  vie in a runoff election.

Pending a runoff, the 12th District will remain without representation, thus denying the Bay Area, the State, and the country a voice of reason on many critical issues. Jackie is that voice. She is, in my estimation, the best qualified candidate in the field. The District can no longer afford to be unrepresented in Washington

History tells us the turnout for off-season and special elections has been low. Help write a new history. Turnout and support Jackie.

Just do it!

Postscript. I do not live in the 12th District, but I am familiar with Jackie’s background and experience. I don’t live in Obama’s or Hillary’s Senate district, either.

Technorati Tags: Jackie Speier,Election,Jonestown Massacre,San Mateo County

He coulda been da boss

We’ve argued for a long time that Alex Tourk coulda been, shoulda been, Mayor of the City and County of San Francisco. In fact, I’m so certain of my belief in his capabilities that I am actually reserving the capital letter M, as in Mayor, for Alex. The other guy is merely someone wandering around in the fields of generic, lower-case Times New Roman.

If Alex’s name had been on the ballot, he woulda taken it easily. Well liked by just about everyone, he’d have made a classy mayor, one grounded in actually getting things done, talking to people instead of avoiding them, and answering real questions from real reporters. Moreover, he woulda spent his time on the job instead of in Hawaii and Davos.

Alex and gav appeared together recently at a Homeless Connect event announcing a Google program to provide free voice mail for homeless clients. We weren’t there, but FCJ was and their spread today illustrates my point pictorially.

The two appeared together in a small room where both spoke to the assembled group. Of the two, Alex comes across as classily dressed, intelligent, and self-assured. Gav, on the other hand, presents his usual pretty-boy façade. Anyone watching the two together would agree that Alex just looks Mayoral. The gav looks like a blue tie walking along a red carpet at the Oscars.

Of course, these are merely our impressions. But we’re pretty good judges of character.

If there is a discordant note in my Alex impression, it’s the question of why he continues to appear in public with gav. We could argue that he has decided to put aside his feelings in favor of a greater good, namely serving the homeless and disadvantaged. That’s a fair argument. Perhaps Alex is an altruistic and forgiving man. If that’s so, he certainly is an exception in this day and age.

Well, we’ll see what happens in the future. Assuming that he’s still in the Bay Area, that he hasn’t accompanied Jackie to D.C. after she wins the 12^th District race, which she surely will, maybe he’ll run for Mayor the next time around.

Our little add-on: As usual, FCJ was the first to get this story on line. Apparently, these people have no social life.

The Name

I continue to wait for The Name to disappear from the media so that the poor kid can get on with her life, as she fully deserves.

But this morning as I ran through news sources prior to having a bite to eat, two stories popped up.

One was an article in BeyondChron which legitimately placed The Name in the context of Newsom’s loyalty. The other was on the website of SFHomeless Yahoo! Group Blogger which wonders why no one today associates Alex with Homeless Connect. He seems to have disappeared by someone’s design, not his I suspect.

Both of these articles address important points. While Newsom continues to float above the clouds, his victims live in an increasingly non-existent world.

But BeyondChron raises the most pressing issue—Newsom’s loyalty, or rather lack thereof, toward his friends and supporters. Susan Leal serves as the public official around whom the article is constructed, but she is only the most recent to bite the dust. All money is on the proposition that she won’t be the last.

Newsom has used his “charisma” (what is this stuff anyway? a magic lotion?) over and over to befuddle the minds of a lot of people, even in the face of his known defects. Why so and how so? That’s for the psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, and other assorted psychobabblers to answer.

Me? I run with pop-babble uncertainty, expressed for posterity in the intro to an old radio show The Shadow, in which an announcer intoned “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows.” I am not The Shadow.

p.s Please do not interpret my reference to The Shadow as a sign of old age and impending death. I happen to be a student of many things. Suffice to say, I am old enough to know better but not too old to entirely control my impulses when faced with certain forms of infantile temptations, like French fries and Diane Lane.