As to anonymous posts. Glad Tony is in a position to post under his own name. One of the many benefits of not working for an elected official any more and running your own PR firm. Many of us are not in that position but like to add to the discussion. If you want to push us out then so be it, its your right, but the Rostra community will suffer.

That someone in Chula Vista got a Fletcher robocall only shows what a junky, bottom-basement tool robocalling is.

Robocalling does provide voters with useful information on candidates, but not in the way they think. Candidates who employ robocalling are either ignorant of the disruptive effect on those called, or are so contemptuous of the public and power-hungry that they don’t care.

And technically, by the only measure that counts, he ran the third best campaign.

And Hugh, I totally disagree with Mr. Manolatos. Your A, B, and C was right on. You and I were not the only ones who noticed it and thank you for including it. As for “throwing them under the bus”, I am certain that everyone Hugh targeted will somehow find a way to move on in life and in a post-Tweets Don’t Equal Votes world, maybe even learn to trust again.

Who knew these people were all so sensitive?

“Looking at the primary from the other side of the aisle… Local conserv blog SDRostra has a couple of post-election articles up that, along with the additional comments posted, should be mandatory reading for San Diego politicos. The Oracle Speaks has local pollster John Nienstedt sharing his observations about local primary contests from a (successful) political consultant’s point of view. And Tweets Don’t Equal Votes takes a look at the social media efforts of the Nathan Fletcher campaign; be sure to read through the comments on this one.”

A week or two ago, I mentioned getting a Nathan Fletcher robocall at my work number. Yesterday I cleared out my voicemail of some unheard messages. One of them was a robocall from Mindy Fletcher.

I did not get any robocalls from any other mayoral candidates.

Let me be clear: I despise robocalls. They are rude. If something is going to take up my time, it should at least be another human being, and not a recorded sales pitch. The presumption of the robocall is that the callee’s time is of no value.

According to a recent CityBeat article, Tom Shepard figured Fletcher would gain more votes than lose with robocalls.

But maybe Shepard figured wrong. It’s hard to imagine any undecided voter being pleased with getting phone spam.

However, I’m friends with several of his legislative office and campaign staffers, and I work for a public affairs firm owned by the campaign’s strategist, so I was able to get a sense of what was going on. I’m not suggesting their ground game was effective; honestly, I don’t know.

I was just responding to the assertion that they cluelessly went about assuming that social media would provide something it can’t. Social media is a measure of enthusiasm among supporters, but it doesn’t change minds. I don’t think Fletcher’s folks focused on social media to the exclusion of the other traditional campaigning methods. They used it to augment, just like the winning candidates did.

I only have one vote, and I voted for no anonymoous posters or comments.

The site would lose some people if it eliminated the anonymous posts and comments, but I think it would pick up more than enough people to offset the losses.

There is no similar site in town that can touch Rostra, so there is a good argument for staying the course. But if you’re a leader I think you should lead, drive change, be transparent, take risks, etc.

Rostra is a great site with a solid base of support, and readers from across the political spectrum, but I think it can be better.

The piece above, if written for Twitter would be:

Now that the high of the election has somewhat faded, I thought it would be as good a time as any to review why some were shocked, SHOCKED b

A shorter piece would have noted that the downside of a social media-centric campaign is that the median age of primary voters , as a rule, is 50+. Particularly twitter is not a social media tool that has penetrated deeply this demographic. FB – much more.

One thing that was heard by numerous civil war generals was the importance of the ground on which the battle was to be fought – by which they meant the topography. Fletcher ultimately had poor ground – a crowded field, a solid Dem and a solid GOP and Bonnie, a festering challenge of pensions, a sluggish economy, the lack of Sander’s endorsement, etc. etc. Even the best campaign and one that cut all surfing out would have been hard pressed to overcome the meta-disadvantages Fletcher faced.

Ya know what else doesn’t equal votes? Stunts to try and fool the public into believing you are independent now and that so that is why you quit the Republican Party.

Social media was an add-on to their other efforts, not a replacement. But he didn’t have unions and party volunteers walking for him, so he was at a disadvantage in that sense.

Finally, let’s not forget how far he came in the year after his announcement — from virtually no name ID to winning 24 percent of the vote. That’s impressive, and it came from running an aggressive campaign with a lot of dedicated folks on both his campaign staff and volunteers who spread the word in every venue.