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Tuesday, May 31, 2005

San Diego Mayoral Special Election

I love Special Elections. While most regular elections are carefully scripted affairs that have been planned for years, Special Elections are last minute sprints. Following the abrupt resignation of San Diego's mayor, there is a Special Election scheduled for July 26th (likely to be followed by a runoff). From the AP:

SAN DIEGO - Fifteen candidates submitted signatures before a Friday filing deadline to run for a spot on the July 26 ballot to replace embattled Republican Mayor Dick Murphy. [...]

Donna Frye, a Democratic city councilwoman who nearly won a write-in bid in November's disputed mayoral election, is widely considered the front-runner to replace Murphy.

Frye, who is married to the legendary surfer Skip Frye, ran a surf shop and campaigned for clean water before joining the City Council in 2001. She has campaigned on a theme of ending what she sees as a culture of secrecy at City Hall.

With a surf shop owner leading the rag-tag pack, it isn't surprising to see she's facing competition for a valet, a P.I., and of course, a rich guy trying to buy the seat. Full candidate list after the break.

Posted at 11:46 AM in 2005 Elections, California, Special Elections | Technorati

Comments

I live in San Diego; I'd love to see Frye win, but I don't think it's as likely as the article would have you believe. Unfortunately, it's a fairly Republican town, with Frye's near-victory in the previous election (which would be an actual victory except that the court decided write-in votes without a marked bubble were invalid) resulting from a three-way split among two Republicans and Frye. She can easily get more than a third of the votes, but it will be a massive struggle to get half. If nobody gets half, then it's a runoff between the two top vote-getters - that means it's Frye versus one Republican (yeah, yeah, it's a non-partisan election - whatever). Frye against a Republican - it's just not likely to fall her way.

Add to that the Mount Soledad Cross issue (should the state continue the tradition of upholding the Christian religion above all others by preserving the cross atop a prominent mountain?), which will bring the nutcases out from under their rocks, and it's likely to go against her.

My hope is that the nutcases do well enough in the first election to put Frye up against someone who is so far to the right as to be abhorent to the majority. My bet is that it will be Frye against Steve Francis (lots of money, "outsider") in the runoff, and - to my chagrin - Francis will take it.

Additional complication: this is with San Diego moving to a "strong mayor" form of government. Whoever takes it gets a lot of juice.

And there's that deep scandal - millions missing from the pension fund - that was instrumental in Murphy's stepping down. Plus an FBI sting against three councilmen (one now deceased) relating to strip clubs' attempt to repeal a "no touching" law... San Diego politics is a little more interesting than some places!

Posted by: Carl Manaster at June 1, 2005 03:31 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment