The story behind David Alvarez's win in San Diego
By Doug Porter, San Diego Free Press
"Just three months ago City Councilman David Alvarez barely registered as a known political entity in San Diego. Outside of his council district, hardly anybody knew who he was. And the notion that he’d be seriously contending for Mayor of the nation’s eighth largest city would have been considered absurd.
Mayoral candidate David Alvarez isn’t taking the victory laps today on the morning talk shows. He can’t. He completely lost his voice talking to voters as the special election neared."
. . .
With 100 percent of precincts reporting this morning, Faulconer received 89,043 votes, Alvarez 52,283 votes, and Fletcher 49,645 votes. There remain as many as 34,500 mail and provisional ballots still to be counted. By shortly after 10pm last night Alvarez had moved into second place and his lead grew throughout the night.
What little life was left in his vocal chords was expended as he thanked supporters last night at a rally held in the old Weber bakery building in the heart of the neighborhood he came from. Back in the day the bakery marketed its white bread as the ideal food for the white bread leaders of the community.
From a 1931 Evening Tribune supplement:
“The big business man eats good white bread and milk because that food keeps him well fed, alert — able to cope with every problem quickly and efficiently.”
Today the 43,000 square foot structure has been repurposed as Bread & Salt, a multi-use office/workshop/gallery. The very mixed demographics of the overflow crowd last night were suggestive of the actual make up of a San Diego that has evolved away from its era of white bread dominance. Draft beer and Tecate in cans washed down the free tacos dispensed from the food truck adjacent to the building.
The election night parties of the three top candidates were an accurate reflection of their campaigns’ appeal. Former Assembly Nathan Fletcher’s campaign hosted an event at their campaign headquarters in a soul-less Mission Valley office building. The enthusiastic crowds were professionals; not too white collar and not too Caucasian.
The party wound down not long after election results came in suggesting a third place finish. One participant texted me wanting to know if they were serving up craft beer over at the Alvarez party.
City Councilman Kevin Faulconer’s event was at the historic US Grant Hotel, symbolic of an era when tycoons ruled the city and much of the riff-raff present at the other candidate’s parties knew their place (or went to jail, in the case of the unions). Business attire was the preferred costume. Cocktails were the beverage of choice.
Smug satisfaction permeated the air as the GOP’s consensus candidate coasted to a first place win. The Traitor (Fletcher) had been vanquished. Compromise with those pesky neighborhoods at the expense of downtown developers could be dispatched with mere lip service. As one tweet noted, “San Diego republicans way more excited to spike the football in Fletcher’s face than they are about Faulconer’s win.”
The plan for the next round is simple: Kevin smiles a lot, while his buddies “independently” gin up fear about Another Filner with a dash of (wink, wink) racism.
. . .
http://sandiegofreepress.org/2013/11/labors-ground-game-made-the-difference-in-alvarez-win/
= new reply since forum marked as read
