Hi Rostrafarians,
Do you miss the days of friendly, even cordial, political seasons in small town America? I contend they probably never existed.
Check out below what landed in my inbox with an admonition “DO NOT FORWARD!”
…and this is in bucolic and prosperous Encinitas where a recent citizen’s satisfaction survey says that an unbelievable 98 percent of the people love this city and think we’re on the right track with our amenities and our services. Now as they say “Ya’ can’t tell the players without a program,” so here’s who is referenced in the forwarded “do not forward” email:
“Tony” is Tony Kranz, candidate for Encinitas City Council
Lisa is Lisa Shaffer, candidate for Encinitas City Council
Teresa is Teresa Barth, incumbent and disgruntled member of the Encinitas City Council
Jim is Jim Kydd, publisher of the Coast News
Muir is appointed Encinitas City Council Member Mark Muir
Mayor Stocks is me.
“Sign gate” is referencing that some political signs were erected prior to the locally allowed 30 days, and that’s what seemingly passes for a major scandal in Encinitas politics these days… Cute, no? Channel 10 news actually interviewed me last night about it. Un-frickin-believable. Now, to the email:
Dear friends-
I am concerned this morning that we may have gone too far with our negative hit campaign on Mayor Stocks and Mark Muir, especially with the campaign signs. I’ve heard around town that people actually think the Council is doing a good job, which is probably related to that biased survey, which falsely indicated that people are happy with the city and its services. What a crock! Many of us are not happy that the park broke ground, but there is still time. Anyway, we need to start weighing the potential effects of their positive campaigning and our negative campaigning. This is still a small community and people may become wary regarding our intentions if the negative campaigning exceeds a certain threshold. We do not want to be written off as NIMBYS.
We have done as much damage as we can to Stocks and Muir with that campaign sign story. Maggie, Teresa, and Jim have really stepped up to get the media to favor our side, but I am now worried that Tony Kranz has spoiled that advantage for us. Why did he make that statement about not putting his signs up early and that someone must have stolen his signs from his garage? I hope none of us advised him to do that because what was once a great story has now turned into a bit of a joke and Tony now appears a little crazy, especially in the North County Times story. I know we are getting great play from the Coast News, but the dark side knows that Jim Kydd maxed out on our candidates’ campaign contributions, gave them an over-the-top endorsement in his paper, and gave them really great ad rates on the front page of the paper. With respect to the Coast News, I’ve also heard that columnist Andrew Audet may have become a liability for us. They appear to know about his FPPC violations when he was helping Tony and Teresa in 2010. Can’t Jim just have him disappear until the election is over? Ms. Tucker is doing a fine job for us and should be able to handle things for us until after the election. I don’t think they have any dirt on her.
My biggest concern continues to be Tony. I was driving by the Ford dealership yesterday afternoon and noticed that the oversized Stocks and Muir signs were gone and that Tony’s sign was there instead. That’s exactly what I mean about going too far. The large Stocks and Muir signs were also missing from several other locations where I saw them previously. I doubt they took them down because they really don’t seem that sorry for putting them up a day early. We need to be careful about how we are acting or we may lose favor with the media. The reason I say this is because it is well-known that the owner of the Ford dealership is very friendly with the Council majority and we would need permission to put our signs on that private property. The Council majority has their signs there during every election, with permission, I presume. This makes it look like we stole their signs, even if we did not. His parking lot is probably monitored 24 hours a day with video cameras like most dealerships, so I hope they did not catch something that may come back to bite us. If one of our people gets caught in the act things could turn against us quickly.
Finally, I’ve intercepted some chatter regarding Tony allegedly accusing a few specific people of stealing the signs out of his garage. It is being said that he is verbally assaulting and maliciously slandering the reputation of a few folks sympathetic to the business groups in town. Let’s hope the major papers do not print this information. This story, Tony’s garage story, and the story about him breaking that man’s campaign sign in 2010 do not show the best side of him. I fear that he has now become a liability for us and Teresa cannot be expected to hold his hand every step of the way. Tony is a great guy, but he may be a ticking time bomb. His is making some concerning mistakes now that make me wonder what might happen when placed under the pressure of being in office. It may be time to put all of our strength behind Lisa. She is the best bet to advance our agenda and ensure that there is no harm done to our community character, no hospital expansion, and no park anytime soon.
Thanks for listening everyone and please don’t shoot the messenger. Let’s help Teresa and advance our agenda by getting Lisa elected. We’ve got a better chance than ever.
_____
Watch some fun video from 2010:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Nv0bMgayFg Same accuser, different targets…
Multiple sources tell me this guy, who stalked and took video of me while I put up campaign signs late at night last week is actually a convicted felon. I have no way to know if this is true or not. Maybe he just doesn’t like or react well to campaign season? And again, this is in Encinitas??? Wow…