Last week I wrote a column about SD Rostra’s success in correctly predicting Upset victories in June by Juan Vargas and Lorie Zapf.
Not very controversial, right?
But a writer for a SD liberal publication attacked, saying (A) Zapf’s victory was no surprise, and (B) no one said she would miss the runoff and (C) we Rostrafarians were “Morons”.
As Jack Benny used to say, “Well !”
But was the Last Angry Man right in his basic complaint? We did some fact-checking to see and found these quotes of note:
The Angry Man’s own boss said this at a post-election forum when asked about the District 6 outcome: “Asked why Lorie Zapf was able to win the District 6 primary by 12 percentage points despite seemingly devastating reporting in CityBeat about her … [City Beat editor David] Rolland said, ‘We were flabbergasted that she beat Howard Wayne by 12 points. One of my reporters exposed Zapf as a religious zealot…'” [Hat tip to veteran local journalist Mark Conlan for this quotation and report].
…. LEADING PREDICTORS OF PRIMARY DEFEAT FOR ZAPF
The Angry Man also charged no one said Lorie Zapf would finish 3rd, or that Howard Wayne could win the race in June with 51% of the vote. Here are some responsible people who did think these things would occur in their pre-primary analysis. This is not a knock on any of the people quoted. They are all legit commentators and no one is expected to get them all right. These are reproduced to make the point that Zapf was seen as a goner on the Liberal side of town…
CHRIS CROTTY (well known,long-time Democratic consultant)
“Early in the evening, political consultant Chris Crotty predicted that District 6 City Council candidate Howard Wayne would take the race: …. ‘it’s only a question as to whether Wayne wins outright tonight.'”
“BLUE SD website”
“I predict Howard Wayne will come in a strong first and Tran will come in 2nd due to her strong name ID in Linda Vista. Everyone else will come trailing behind. The GOP will then put their weight behind Tran for November’s run off but it will be too late since Wayne will have his grip on Clairemont and will start eating into Tran’s turf in Linda Vista.”
“SD POLITICO” website
“Hadley has the Donna-heads on his side but that’s it. They will deny Wayne the outright win but will make it easier for him to unify the party in the fall. The egos of Kvaric and Sudberry have chained them to the flawed candidacy of Zapf…. in spite of the candidate, Zapf gets dragged across the finish line into the runoff.”
…….. SUMMARIZING THE FACTS TO DATE
These are all acknowledged voices of San Diego liberal politics. Each foresaw Lori Zapf heading to defeat, outright in the primary or going to the runoff badly trailing Howard Wayne. Instead Zapf ran 1st, 12% ahead of Howard Wayne. So… since SD Rostra reported in May that Zapf was neck-and-neck with Howard Wayne, and gaining, we had a right later to claim credit for seeing the Upset coming.
‘K?
Comments 12
Sills, you are such a liar.
Here’s what you write about me:
“But a writer for a SD liberal publication attacked, saying (A) Zapf’s victory was no surprise, and (B) no one said she would miss the runoff and (C) we Rostrafarians were “Morons”…
Item #1.
Show me where I said “(A).” Where is it?
Here’s the link:
http://sdrostra.com/?s=zapf&x=0&y=0
Item #2
I never said (B)
That, this is what I said:
“I don’t know a single person who thought it would be a Hadley-Wayne run-off.”
No one you quoted suggests it would be.
Rolland was shocked that Lorie had that large of a jump on Wayne. I think everyone on both sides of the aisle were surprised.
Rostra certainly did not predict that–or I might’ve been less shocked, since I read Rostra.
SD Blue’s prediction was just bonkers. (Frankly, calling SD Blue and San Diego Politico “acknowledged voices of San Diego liberal politics” is just silly.)
Item #3
Regarding (c) I did not call Rostrafarians “morons.” Barry Jantz and Gayle Falkenthal are among the least moronic people I know. In fact, they’re pretty damned brilliant. I’m also a Sunshine fan. You, Sills, are a moron all on your own. You do no credit to them or this blog.
Dave Maass
OK, let’s stop the name-calling. We have a policy here against such, but it typically only comes up in the case of some politician being targeted. It applies to the bloggers and commenters as well. Take them to the woodshed for their opinions, call the credibility of their writing into question, even hate them personally, we don’t care. But, leave the personal attacks out. Issues and opinions, not personalities. It stops here. We’d prefer to leave comments up, not be forced to take them down simply because of one or two words. Thanks.
I will follow the good advice of Rostra Administrator
and not respond directly.
Both columns are fully documented and speak for
themselves. Personally I DO respect the opinions
expressed on ‘SD Politico’ and ‘Blue San Diego’,
while not agreeing with their philosophy.
Fully documented? You don’t even link to anything.
We had a pretty good working relationship with SD Rostra going into the primary election based on mutual respect. I can’t respect a blogger who twists words and facts to this extent.
It’s downright shameful.
” It’s downright shameful ” is a pretty good
description of what’s going on…. lol
OK, so here’s the proof that you’re way off base, Sills.
In our final piece on the Zapf-Wayne race before the election, we CITED SDRostra and FlashReporter in our story.
http://www.sdcitybeat.com/sandiego/article-7776-zapf-dingbats.html
“[City Beat editor David] Rolland said, ‘We were
flabbergasted that she beat Howard Wayne by
12 points. ”
The Angry Man should take this up with his editor,
who gets High Marks for forthrightness.
Jim,
Good on you for showing class. You demonstrated how the dogmatic local lefties fell victim to the Pauline Kael fallacy. Of course, the DLLs can’t stand the truth, so they sputter and rage. For folks who preen themselves on being so compassionate and tolerant, they’re unusually angry.
I hope you can withstand the horror of one of the DLLs not respecting you. What a terrifying fate!
If we were flabbergasted, it’s because we were reading SD Rostra, who also got it wrong. That’s my point, Sills.
Please give it up and move on.
For the record, Rostra got nothing wrong. A Rostra BLOGGER touted a clearly anonymous poll, showing that Zapf may surprise some people. She did, even moreso than the poll indicated. Now, if someone wants to say that the poll showed she and Wayne nearly even, yet because she ended up leading him substantially, then that means Rostra got it wrong, that would be his/her opinion. Legitimate, whether we agree or not.
On the other hand, if someone else sees it as the mainstream and the left thinking Zapf had little chance, yet the election result showed that she was far more competitive, just like the poll indicated, that too would be an opinion, also in fact a legitimate one.
Either way, an opinion. Yet, this incessant carping over it almost three months after the fact is getting tiresome and boring.
How about Wayne and Zapf in the runoff? How about that discussion? Because the only thing that matters right now is that those two survived the primary, along with the result indicating the runoff may be far more competitive than many pundits expected.
Enough already.
Mr. Fikes:
Thank you for the Shout-Out. It is appreciated.
Call me Bradley, Jim. I appreciate what you’re doing here (along with the other Rostrafarians), and wanted you to know that. Have a great weekend!