San Diego Supervisor Election Heads to November Runoff

There are ballots remaining to be counted, but the odds are in November, City Council member Monica Montgomery-Steppe will face Republican Amy Reichert in the contest to replace Nathan Fletcher in District 4.

It is theoretically possible for Democrat Janessa Goldbeck to surge past Reichert, but given the nearly 3000 vote gap with one quarter of the ballots cast remaining to be counted, it’s unlikely. 

Fourth place Republican Paul McQuigg collected 5% of the vote. Adios.

The 79,289 ballots cast represents a 25% turnout in D4, a bit higher than normal for a special election. Voters in Montgomery-Steppe’s City Council district, overlapping in large part with Supervisorial District 4, were solidly supportive.

I’m sure we can all agree on feeling grateful for at least a pause in the slick flyers crowding mailboxes, not to mention the onslaught of text messages. The traditional advice about mailers & calls stopping once your vote is cast did not work in this campaign, as the PACs representing institutional players were determined to leave no stone unturned in the electorate.

There was a massive amount of advertising, mostly paid for by union-affiliated groups. Much of the local Labor Council supported Montgomery-Steppe. Law enforcement employee groups focused on opposing Montgomery-Steppe as revenge for her role in seeking citizen oversight for the San Diego Police Department, via a ballot measure supported by 70% of the electorate.

Janessa Goldbeck was the primary recipient of law enforcement largesse. Her campaigning, aimed at the Rep. Scott Peters wing of the local Democratic constituency, included many mentions as her service in the Marine Corps, her advocacy during the era of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, and allusions to her connections with the federal government as the experience qualifying her for elective office.

Democratic candidates earned a combined 66% of the vote in District 4, and it’s so it’s safe to say the general election results will be a blowout if it’s Democrat vs Republican. Montgomery-Steppe will have the full support of the local democratic apparatus, which means campaign cash and enthusiastic ground support.

Reichert’s direct supporters (i.e., form 460 contribution reports) include real estate and construction interests, along with the usual array of GOP contributors. Of note are individuals associated with The Awaken Church, playing a central role in San Diego’s theocratic right.

It’s important to recall why and how Reichert got into politics, namely as a leader of the anti-vaxx crowd who decided Supervisor Nathan Fletcher was Hitler reincarnated. She ran against Fletcher last year in the general election and lost by a thirty+ point margin. Her likelihood of success in a district that’s registered 3 to 1 in favor of Democrats is slim.

Winning isn’t the point in enemy (Democratic) territory in the MAGA era. Reichert’s been polished up a bit around the edges to the point where the untrained ear could be fooled into thinking she’s “reasonable.” In practice this means she smiles a lot while saying things like “just asking questions” and being purposely vague whenever possible.

It may seem hard to understand that she supports an (gussied up) anti-vaxx position apparently resulting in a big difference in death rates between Republicans and Democrats since a COVID vaccine became available in April 2021. 

Why would a party want to kill off its voters?  The answer becomes obvious once you understand the overall strategy, which is aimed at eroding the institutions of democracy through the embrace of “political technology.”

Historian Heather Cox Richardson in Letters from an American explains:

• It appears the Trump Republicans have fully embraced what Russian political theorists called “political technology”: the construction of a virtual political reality through modern media. Political theorists developed several techniques in this approach to politics: blackmailing opponents, abusing state power to help favored candidates, sponsoring “double” candidates with names similar to those of opponents in order to confuse voters on the other side and thus open the way for their own candidates, creating false parties to split the opposition, and, finally, creating a false narrative around an election or other event in order to control public debate.

San Diego’s anti-science candidate won’t win, but she’d love to get voters in a more cynical place, aka the false narrative. She’ll be perfectly content to join the local Republican Council (an election for which she’s also raised money) and continue in her role as a nicer looking Carl DeMaio on KUSI TV. 

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Montgomery-Steppe will be sworn in as a (assuming the current trajectory) Supervisor not long after the vote council becomes official in December. This will cause a special election to replace her on the San Diego City Council, and the candidates are reportedly in waiting. The date for such a contest will likely be the same as the March 2024 primary elections.

According to the Union-Tribune:

• Potential candidates emerging for her seat — if it becomes available — include Henry Foster, Montgomery Steppe’s longtime chief of staff, and two local activists who have led nonprofits: Francine Maxwell and Tariq Harris.

• Two prominent names who have officially ruled themselves out are Genevieve Jones-Wright, a former county public defender who ran for district attorney in 2018, and Tasha Williamson, a community activist who ran for mayor in 2020.

Press conference maestro Shane Harris announced on Twitter last night that he’s ready to step up. Given how much effort he’s put into glad-handing Republican officials lately, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s the local GOP’s stealth candidate.

Given that this is a primary election date in 2024, the obvious conclusion would be that whomever the Democratic Party backs will win… BUT Montgomery-Steppe won her seat by defeating an incumbent backed by the Dems.

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One more thing… 

The offices of Planned Parenthood in El Centro were burned down this week. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a unique event. Back in June authorities arrested three men and charged them with throwing a Molotov cocktail at a Planned Parenthood office in Costa Mesa. A Google News search for “Planned Parenthood Office burned down” reveals a half dozen other attacks on women’s health care facilities since the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v Wade.

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Wednesday News Amuse Bouche

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For all the news items posted last weekend about the Iowa State fair, prime viewing area for Republicans seeking the state’s early caucus voters, there wasn’t a whole lot about the food. Fear not, Lyz at the Men Yell at Me substack has you covered.

The Agony and Excess of the State Fair

• Mikhail Bakhtin, in his writings on the carnival, described it as a space outside the everyday, one that is both temporary and freeing for lower classes often oppressed by the usual social order. Here, laughter is a key element, and built on the subversions of expectations. Whereas in the outside world, we are expected and cautioned to eat more salads, in the world of the fair that salad is on a stick. Cows are made of their own butter. It’s silly. It’s fun. 

• And how often is food allowed to be fun? How often are we just allowed to eat and enjoy it and eat some more?

• In a world of moralizing about food and diets and bodies, in the oppressive superego of keto, Weight Watchers and Noom, state-fair food is our culinary id — a grotesquely joyous display of all that is forbidden and still desired. Waffles and Snickers, battered and fried and put on a stick. Bacon dipped in chocolate. It’s fried and sugary and, unless it’s corn or coleslaw, there is rarely a vegetable to be found. 

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No "reset" will fix what's wrong with DeSantis by David R Lurie at Public Notice. If you squint, you can see that most of his woke targets just happen to be Black.

• In recent weeks, DeSantis has acknowledged that he’s wildly overspent, including on private plane travel for himself and his spouse, forcing the campaign to abruptly shed staff at a time it should be gearing up. And in a trend that began even before DeSantis formally announced his candidacy, a number of the deep pocketed donors he has relied upon are openly considering backing other Trump rivals.

• In the face of this rapidly accelerating disaster, DeSantis has declared that he intends to run a “leaner” and “insurgent” campaign. But if his recent moves are any indication, it’s already clear that DeSantis 2.0 will be an equally spectacular failure.

• Last week, he fired his campaign manager, Generra Peck, as part of what’s being marketed as a retooling of his campaign. He replaced Peck with his chief of staff, James Uthmeier, a young right-wing lawyer, who has no experience managing political campaigns whatsoever.

• While Uthmeier is no campaign professional, he does have experience with the kind of gratuitous meanness and culture warring that DeSantis is so devoted to.

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Former Trump advisor blames Jews for their own deportations to Auschwitz Via by The Jewish Chronicle’s Rosa Doherty. Remember, Michael Flynn is leading the Christian Nationalist movement these days.

• The Auschwitz Museum has slammed comments made by former Trump adviser who blamed Jews for their own deportations at the hands of the Nazis.

• In a recent speech, Michael Flynn, a Christian nationalist, suggested mothers were complicit in handing over their young children to go on trains to Auschwitz. 

• He said “Any mother who would be told, ‘Give me your child, give me your baby, we’re going to separate you, we’re not just going to put you into a club coach car. We’re going to stuff you like a sardine into a train.’”

• He went on to claim “there weren’t any guards,” implying that Jews could have simply left or said no to Hitler’s soldiers. 

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Lead Image: Screenshot from KUSI, published on social media with commentary critical of her support for vaccine mandates, and suggesting this was the reason for a “drastic loss of officers” at the SDPD.