Diary #7 in an ongoing series of my experiences as a candidate.
It’s been over a month since my last diary on this topic. The reason is simple, the explanation is complicated. Bear with me as I try to accurately and fairly describe what has happened, the reasons, and the results, and the surprise twist at the end. This isn’t over yet.
Dairy #8 in an ongoing series of my experiences as a candidate for Mountain View, CA City Council
On January 3 this year, I filed the required paper work to announce my intent to become a City Council candidate in the City of Mountain View. A few weeks later, my company gave me the “outside business interest” (OBI) approval to campaign. This was good news. Unbeknownst to me, at that same time, they sent what looked like an innocuous letter to the City Attorney of Mountain View asking for assurances that if I were elected, they’d retain the right to do business with the City. For an explanation of what happened next, read my previous diary here. I’ll wait for you to catch up. Seriously, it’s an interesting read and has a cliffhanger ending. This diary is the resolution of that situation.
When I last left you, three weeks ago, I had fought the good fight…against my company…just for the right to take a seat should I win one for the Mountain View City Council. I prevailed. You can read about all that drama in my last two diaries. For information purposes, Mountain View is in Silicon Valley, is home to Google, LinkedIn, Intuit, Symantec, Synopsys, and has offices for Facebook and Microsoft as well. And that doesn't include the hundreds of “start-ups” that are nearly in every nook-and-cranny around town. To say we’re high tech is nearly an understatement. We define the culture.
Diary #10 in an on-going series documenting my run for City Council
Now that my daughter and son (15 and 13 respectively) are done with their school year, in the evenings (and as a family) we’ve been binge watching the NBC sitcom “Parks and Recreation” on Netflix. In fact, last night, we finished season 4 in which the main character Leslie Knope, assistant director to the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana’s Parks & Rec department, is elected to City Council. The entire 4th season is dedicated to her campaign and the trials and tribulations thereof. If you’re politically minded or even just a little interested in local governance, the show is laugh out loud funny. I highly recommend it.
On Saturday July 12, the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce hosted a “Candidate School” and invited all eight of the listed candidates. The agenda started at 8:30, ended at 5:30 followed up by a cocktail reception at a nearby restaurant. Seven of the eight Council candidates showed up, plus a school district board candidate as well as a candidate for the local water district. The first two hours were devoted to how to run and think about campaigning. The hours that followed had to do with how to get your message out, targeting voters, etc. By the end of the day, we had all gotten to know each other a bit better. Given we are going to be together for the next few months, I’d say that was an important first step.
As I published yesterday, in my Diary of a City Council Candidate (#11!), I spent all day Saturday in Campaign School tooling up for this November’s election. One of the speakers was a GOP operative/fundraiser/and the head of the Republican Party in Los Angeles. Why he came up to Silicon Valley (over 300 miles away) to talk to a room full of mostly Democratic candidates for Mountain View City Council, I have no idea.
Yeah, that happened. I’ll tell you about it a little lower in the diary because first I want to catch you up on the comings and goings of being a candidate.
I have a fifteen and a half year old daughter (who just got her driver’s permit), a thirteen year old son who becomes a bar mitzvah in three weeks, a wife, and a full time job. Those things alone (and all of the kids attendant activities) should keep a modern American man very busy. And they do. But I’m also still on the board of our local theatre group, the Chamber of Commerce, and I’m still a sitting City Commissioner. To say that my time is scheduled is an understatement. Add in a campaign/candidacy for City Council, and you get a guy who is constantly up to his neck in things to do. Very little down time – lots of stress. In fact, I haven’t fallen asleep before one in the morning in weeks and my body naturally wakes me up at around 5:45 (I still can’t get out of bed until 6:30 though). Yeah, this is tough stuff! LOL
I can’t believe I last submitted a diary a month ago. Where has the time gone? Oh yeah, nearly every minute of my days (and nights) have been filled with campaign activities and as such, I’ve had no time to write.
The date for filing to become a candidate and appear on the ballot closed on August 8th. We officially have nine candidates for three open seats (that is, no incumbents) . Even though this is a large field, it’s not the largest in Mountain View’s history. Indeed, a number of years ago, there were twelve! However, the field of candidates this year is very strong. We have three candidates who have run before and know how to run a campaign, five of the nine have been on the Planning Commission, often seen as a stepping stone to council, two lawyers, four MBAs, two who have worked for congress members, etc, etc. There really isn’t a slouch in the bunch.
I am running for City Council in Mountain View, CA. These have been my stories.
I just looked at the schedule for the next three weeks and decided to write another diary now because there doesn’t look to be much opportunity for a while. As you can guess, the amount of community “forums” (our local word for debate) are heavily skewed toward the beginning of October. We’ve had a few thus far and I think most of the 9 candidates (for three uncontested seats) have found their voices. I’m proud to have picked up some important endorsements recently. One of the last “big” endorsements is the community newspaper. I had my interview last week and am anxiously awaiting their release. I don’t think they will announce, however, until the first week of October. That’s too late for most end-of-campaign marketing literature, but enough time to have it be known around town.
I am running for City Council in Mountain View, CA. These have been my stories.
I can’t believe it’s been over a month since my last diary. I will post this and probably only two more: the results, and the final diary being my observations of the whole experience. I’ll even include “key learnings” that might help future candidates prepare for a run of their own.
I’ll start off with the big news: I did in fact earn the endorsement of my local paper. In fact, there are two local papers and I was endorsed by both. To me, that is probably the biggest endorsement as most people see it. I have been endorsed by a very large and diverse swath of Mountain View leaders. You can see them on my campaign website here.
We had 9 qualified candidates in this election (for 3 open/uncontested seats) each doing some version of “classic” local campaigning. Everybody walked. Everybody had mailers. Everybody had advertisements in the paper. Everybody had lawn signs. Everybody had followers helping them. The difference, at the end of the day, was one of local experience, adherence to message (or simply just having a message!) and connecting to the voters.
Turns out, being a Bush is indeed quite lucrative.
Jeb Bush made $29 million in the first seven years after he left public office, dramatically increasing his wealth during a recession, a financial crisis and the Obama presidency he has criticized.And it's likely the number is much higher because these figures are only through 2013.
I have to give the guy a little credit. He did release 33 years of taxes (unlike McCain or Romney). And because of the nature of his income, and his relatively paltry charitible donations, he has paid his share of taxes. Still, he does offshore his wealth and is involved in the family tradition of oil investments. And he made a disproportate amount of money during the great recession working for failed banks.
“I’ve been truly blessed to be able to be more successful than I imagined."Interesting read.
Perhaps this is why The Donald is claiming Mexicans are rapists.
Behind the headlines over Trump’s Mexico-bashing remarks is a legal dispute between the billionaire presidential candidate and two Mexican businessmen. Trump says they owe him [$12 million] from the beauty contest eight years ago.Whatever the cause of his ire, could you please pass the popcorn while I watch him melt?
In my career as a financial advisor, I have worked on my share of 401(k) plans. From the description of the 401(k) plan that Donald Trump offers his employees, saving for one's personal retirement is challenging.
The article, as reported by Bloomberg News, calls his plan "stingy." Perhaps that's how he has amassed a personal net worth of over $8B (I still don't believe he's worth that much, given his propensity to exaggerate).
Most companies will automatically enroll employees into 401(k) plans, if for no other reason than to more easily comply with the compliance testing that they are required to follow (a certain percentage of rank-and-file employees have to participate in order for the more highly compensated employees to be able to participate). Trump doesn't do this. You have to "opt-in" which is a statistically surefire way of reducing the amount of amount of participation.
Most 401(k) plans for employees will begin shortly after you are hired. At Trump, Inc, you have to wait a year.
Most 401(k) plans will offer a matching contribution. At Trump, Inc, you have to wait until the end of the year to qualify for the match. So if you started work on January 15, 2013, you don't qualify to participate for the 401(k) until January 15, 2014, and you won't collect a cent of any corporate match until January 1, 2015. And to make it worse, the corporate match has a 6 year vesting schedule. You don't get to keep 100% of that 2014 match until January 1, 2020. This is the longest vesting schedule allowed by law, or the worst plan idea you can install for your employees. I suppose this is an improvement for when Trump, Inc wasn't providing a match at all! Turns out he stopped the match during the recession and was among the slowest companies to turn it back on.
The average savings in the Trump plan is a paltry $20,000.
The article says nothing about investment choices, which largely determine the success of the participants savings results. I'd be curious to see the list. As an aside, one of the best ways to save for retirement is your company's 401(k) plan due to the pre-tax nature of the contribution, the regular periodic payments into your savings plan ("dollar cost averaging"), the tax free nature of the growth of the investments over time, and the company matching contribution which is essentially free money.
In other news, a Trump golf course in Los Angeles just lost the PGA Grand Slam of Golf due to his incediary remarks about Mexicans.
Have a nice day.
Reading Daily Kos these days is reminiscent of 2004 when Howard Dean was running for president. He, like today’s Bernie Sanders, was the far more progressive candidate than John Kerry. It was a regular cheerleading squad around here, such was the love for Dean. Of course, he could not close the deal, made a squeal, and was left as a footnote in presidential politics.
For those whose hackles are immediately raised when someone begins a post this way, please note that I am: a 10 year member of Daily Kos, a lifetime subscriber, have authored over 100 diaries, a “trusted user”, an elected official (city council), and somewhat pragmatic. So I read the diaries promoting Bernie Sanders with a bit of amusement and fascination. I share many of his thoughts about how America “should be,” so he is not a crackpot in any estimation. In fact, he is dead on right on so many issues.
My internal strife comes from rooting for the underdog (again) and watching him lose (again) and then having to “settle” for the more mainstream candidate in the general election. Most regular readers of Daily Kos will back whoever is the eventual nominee from our party, even if it is somewhat reluctantly. This begs the existential question: is it better to work hard (fundraising, phone calls, blogs, Facebook trolling, etc, etc), for the underdog or is it better to work (now) to bring Hillary Clinton further to the left and accept that she will be the nominee. The skeptic in me thinks that is the only reason Bernie Sanders got into the race in the first place: to make Clinton’s progressive street credibility even stronger by challenging her positions from the left, thereby making her go on record (as a progressive) on issues she may otherwise have tried to stay neutral on.
I understand that many folks here aren’t sold on Hillary for a variety of reasons. But the likelihood of her losing the primary to Bernie Sanders is slim to none. Rachel Maddow did a piece about a week or so ago discussing what happened to Newt Gingrich four years ago when he topped the Republican charts after winning two primary elections. That’s when the right wing “establishment” went on attack and essentially killed his candidacy from the inside. I’ll bet my last dollar if Bernie Sanders, as a Democrat, wins a few primary states early on, the Democratic Party establishment will poison his campaign and effectively end it. The question will remain at that point, does he run as an independent, thus pulling a Ralph Nader maneuver and hand the White House to whichever Republican wins that primary.
Regardless of which path this goes, my question to anybody who chooses to leave a comment is this: Would you work to defeat Hillary Clinton in the General Election by supporting an independent run for Sanders (and thus supporting the more progressive, ideological pure candidate) or do you bite the bullet and support the person carrying the banner for the Democratic Party, regardless if she doesn’t support all of your ideals exactly the way you’d like them to be supported?
I think for this go around, I’ll support Hillary starting now. It’s high time we had a woman running the show in this country. And you know, she’s progressive enough to have my back on most issues I care deeply about. And she’s amazingly intelligent, seasoned, and respected around the globe. We can’t lose by helping her win.
Buried in last night's debate was a quick question round where Anderson Cooper asked the candidates who or what organization are they most proud to have made an enemy. Hillary said, "The Republicans." At first blush, it was kind of a funny. But when put into historical context, it's quite revealing on how she is taking the fight to them, not inviting them in to "co-lead."
Rachel Maddow had a 12 minute piece on how this election is different from 8 years ago, assuming the presumptive candidate wins the primary. Watch, it's beautiful.
The link is here.
MSNBC is challenging to embed. If you can teach me how, I'll do it!
Or cut and paste:
http://www.msnbc.com/...
A One Term President
A Two Term President
-- winning vote supplied by the Supreme Court (term 1)
-- a mysterious Ohio vote count change in middle of the night (term 2)
A Failed Run for President
Hardly a dynasty. Nor much to be proud of, historically speaking. Nothing but a bunch of asterisks, these guys.
[edited diary: inserted "(presidential)" in title]
Yesterday was Super Bowl Sunday. I live in Mountain View, CA which had the distinction of being a transit gateway to Levi’s Stadium where the game was held. If you were going to take public transportation to the stadium, we were one of a small handful of gateways. As such, it was expected thousands of people would go through our turnstiles. As the Vice Mayor of the city, I went to greet our visitors at the train station where people would offload from our regional CalTrain system and transfer to our local Light Rail system (which took them directly and uninterrupted to the stadium, about seven miles away). Nearly everyone I asked was from outside of California. It was all very exciting.
While en route to the transit station at 10:15am, I stopped off at a breakfast restaurant . There were diners enjoying their meals while decked out in either Panther or Bronco team colors. I asked if they were simply rooting for their team or going to the game. “BOTH!” everybody screamed in unison. People were in good spirits. But me talking to the Bronco table brought the Panther table (sitting behind them) to life. A lively version of “We’re #1”“No, we’re #1” broke out. Soon other tables joined in, and after about 30 seconds, we had an impromptu session of the old Miller Lite commercials when half the crowd shouted “Less filling!” and the other half shouted back “Tastes great!”
I am a long time Daily Kos reader. I think I joined (as a registered user) in 2005, but I was definitely around for the Dean fans in 2004. What’s happening here now, with respect to the Clinton/Sanders candidacy reminds me of what happened then. As a progressive blog site, it’s not lost on me that we would have such vocal Sanders fans. As a Democratic landing page for many many readers, it’s also not surprising that we have a legion of Clinton fans. I think it’s great that we all hang out here. But I must admit, I don’t understand the intention of most of the rec’d diaries lately.
Judging by Kos polling of DK readers, Sanders has the edge on this site. Is it the goal of Sanders supporters to convince Clinton supporters to switch candidates (or vice versa)? It would seem that way because so many of the Pro-Sanders blogs are about how terrible Clinton is. Or that the Clinton blogs are about how Sanders can’t win. I always thought we were on the same side. I must admit, I love both candidates equally. But I am bored by the Rec list everyday with essentially the same diaries with different nuances. When can we go back to ripping on the Republicans instead of each other? We are, as the old beer commercial said, making the same argument in favor of two good candidates. You say “Less Filling!” and we say “Tastes Great.”
Democrats in 2016: Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose!
The bigotry and hatred on display at Trump rallies has been well documented and continues to be nauseating. The latest occurrence was yesterday when 30 black students from Valdosta State University were removed for being black, I suppose. The school was white’s only as recently as 1963. The most sickening thing of all is that Trump, himself, is condoning it, approving it, and fueling the fire for an increase of tension.
On my Facebook and Twitter posts, from now on, I will be using the hashtag ThisIsNotMyAmerica. At this point, it will take the collective actions of EVERYONE to stop this guy. It has to start NOW. There is no putting this effort off to a later day. He is beyond scary. He is an affront for every ideal this country stands for.
What you can do:
Please...let’s get this done.
It’s a cool thing to be an elected official (Vice Mayor, City of Mountain View) in a presidential election year. Especially when your Silicon Valley home town is an official ATM for Democratic Party fundraisers. All the big wigs come to town to schmooze with the Google, LinkedIn, Tesla, and Facebook executives of the world. And I typically get invited. So far, I’ve met President Obama and Hillary Clinton, in addition to their subordinate big wigs who travel with them. Next week, Bernie Sanders is making his California debut at a hush hush private event in the Palo Alto Hills Country Club. The sponsoring host is Fred Anderson of Elevation Partners, Bono’s venture capital firm. I was talking with Fred recently at a cocktail party for local officials about how I have been to 46 U2 shows and am among the biggest U2 fans there is and how I was lucky to run into Bono at Google nearly a year ago and that I was so happy to take my 14 year old son to his first U2 show last year in San Jose. I showed him the photos on my phone. He laughed and invited me to the fundraiser. I’m not really a Bernie fan (I’m with Her), but I joked if Bono was going to be there, I’d show up. Fred’s response was, “Well make sure your evening is free, because Bono is a Bernie supporter, and he’ll be in town for a few meetings.”
“What?!!” I said. “Bono is the consummate networker and I know that he doesn’t play favorites with politicians. His work is above politics.” Fred laughed at me and said that its true Bono has to play diplomat to get his causes passed by the various governments he lobbies, but he really does favor some over others. And he is hoping Bernie gets elected. Who knew?
So I happily accepted the invitation and told him I’d be there! My wife has to take our son to debate practice that night (Thursday April 7), so I have a “plus 1” I can bring. I figured it should be a local Kossak. If you’re interested, please let me know by KosMail. To select the person, I’ll make a list of everybody who responds by the end of today. Even’s will be Heads, Odd’s will be Tails. I’ll keep shortening the list until I get to the last person. If you don’t get a response, it wasn’t you. Good luck!
Rgds,
Ken
