Our November meeting falls on the first day of a new era in American history. And that’s no hype.
Our meeting is Wednesday evening, Nov. 4. We’re hoping it’ll be a festive event, with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris winning by a landslide, in a victory so decisive that even the MAGAs can’t fight it, ushering in the dawn of a new Golden Age in American history. We’re also hoping to see a Blue Wave of victories sweeping the nation, California, San Diego and local communities.
That’s what we’re hoping for. But we can all imagine darker scenarios. And any of those would be new eras for America too.
And that’s the subject of our meeting Nov. 4: A post-election analysis and breakdown, with programming starting at 7 pm and social time starting a half-hour earlier at 6:30 pm.
We’ll convene a panel of journalists and pundits to break down outcomes and attempt to peer into the future in key elections on the federal, state, county, and local level.
Here’s the Zoom link:
We’ve got a brilliant panel of political thinkers to help talk us into the future:
- Michael Smolens, longtime political columnist for the San Diego Union-Tribune
- Kyra Greene, executive director of the California think tank Center on Policy Initiatives
- Ric Epps, political science professor at San Diego State University
- Cynara Kidwell, California political consultant and data analyst.
Moderating will be Evlyn Andrade, a member of the La Mesa-Foothills Democratic Club board and veteran campaigner.
After hashing out the Presidential election, we’ll move on to Congressional races, with two key races we’re following closely: The 50th District, where Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar – an East County-born son of Latino and Palestinian immigrants, ex-church janitor and former Obama White House aide – improbably running neck-and-neck with Republican hack Darrel Issa. This is a real opportunity to turn a longtime Republican stronghold Blue.
Meanwhile, two Democrats are facing off in the 53d District for the seat vacated by Democratic stalwart Susan Davis: Georgette Gómez is a Latina and lesbian who was raised in poverty in Barrio Logan and now serves as President of the San Diego City Council. Sara Jacobs is granddaughter of Qualcomm co-founder Irwin Jacob, and worked in policy positions in the U.S. State Department, UNICEF, and United Nations, and was policy advisor to Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election. Gómez is running as the scrappy D.C. outsider, while Jacobs as a Washington veteran who can get things done from the outset.
Locally, we’ll discuss the outcome of the race between two Democrats for mayor of San Diego: Todd Gloria and Barbara Bry. It’s been an ugly election, with Democrat-on-Democrat violence; the winner will lead the city out of the pandemic era.
But there’s more ground to cover – more important elections that will be resolved.
- Liz Lavertu, campaigning in the 71st Assembly District against a powerful Republican adversary.
- Raul Campillo, angling to become only the second Democrat to hold the San Diego City Council District 7 seat.
- On the La Mesa City Council, incumbent Colin Parent and newcomer Jack Shu have a shot at turning that body into a governing majority for Democrats, for the first time.
- And plenty more.
Additionally, there are numerous important ballot initiatives, including Proposition 14, renewing funding for California’s stem cell research; Proposition 15, to partly overturn Prop 13 and make commercial property taxes more fair, to fund schools and communities; Proposition 16, ending the ban on affirmative action; Prop 25, ending cash bail; and Prop 22, a naked money grab by Uber, Lyft, and other gig economy companies to allow them to continue to exploit workers.
It’ll be quite a busy evening meeting, and hopefully a happy one, in which we celebrate a Blue Wave up and down the ballot. Join us at 6:30 pm Wednesday Nov. 4, for open, informal conversation, with the programming starting 7 pm, on Zoom of course. Here’s that meeting link again.
La Mesa-Foothills Democratic Club 