Newstradamus

Michael Kountouris/Cagle Cartoons

The Hawaiian pidgin language is full of descriptive words, such as “huhu,” which describes a state of agitated anger.

The North Coast blogs have been all huhu since before the supervisor elections over the campaign’s hot-button issue: Johanna Rodoni’s shadow candidacy for 2nd District county supervisor.

The name of her husband, Roger, remained on the June 3 ballot after he died in a car crash just before the election. Johanna was appointed by the governor to fill out his term, and rather than asking voters to write in her name, she and her supporters encouraged a vote for Roger in hopes she would be reappointed.

The conventional wisdom was that if Roger didn’t attract 50 percent of the voters plus one, Johanna was out of luck. Everybody knew that even if Roger was in the top two of three candidates, because of his death he could not be the Nov. 4 runoff, nor could Johanna be a write-in in the fall.

One bit of tongue-in-cheek advice given to young journalists is, “If your mother says she loves you, check it out,” meaning that a healthy skepticism about what “everybody knows” is a reporter’s best friend.

So our reporters started with the county’s top elections official, Carolyn Crnich, who said she would have to do some research, but was too swamped with election preparation for a quick answer, which was understandable.

Our Editorial Board had an opportunity before the election to ask Johanna Rodoni whether she could be a write-in candidate Nov. 4, and she said: “Not as far as I understand it. There is some question about that still. We haven’t even pursued that. We’re just going to get through June 3, and then we’ll look at the options for November.”

So when our editorial endorsement of Clif Clendenen was published on June 1, it hedged a sentence that it was “possible” Johanna could be a November write-in. While there were hints that the door wasn’t closed, we didn’t know for sure. Plus, we didn’t think it was fair to put pressure on Crnich publicly to make a ruling at such a stressful time at her office.

That sentence, however, was enough to throw gas on the flaming huhu. How could the “Substandard” be so stupid? Don’t they know the law? A write-in by Johanna Rodoni? What outrageous incompetence to suggest anything of the kind. Sub-sub-sub!”

That’s why online political opinion gives you the most for your entertainment dollar — especially since it's free.

Of course, the Times-Standard wanted to have the question answered by election night, especially if Roger Rodoni did not win outright. Which is what happened. He got 36.7 percent of the vote, only 16 more votes than Clendenen. Estelle Fennell was another 644 votes back, but she’ll be on the runoff ballot in November.

So it was with some satisfaction that we published a story that night quoting a spokeswoman at the California secretary of state’s office — which oversees elections — saying one of their attorneys found no legal obstacles to a Johanna write-in on Nov. 4.

Of course, the huhu continued unabated, as I’m sure it will after today’s front-page story about Crnich saying a county legal opinion confirms that.

We look forward to more huhu ha-ha’s for months to come, especially if someone has pockets deep enough for a legal challenge.

Posted by Rich Somerville at 07:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)

Jeff Parker/Florida Today

Apparently Hillary Clinton's most loyal supporters in Congress did an intervention Wednesday, and now there are plans for her to concede and endorse Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination on Saturday. Maybe...

That's, of course, what all the Clinton "insiders" were saying she was going to do Tuesday night, and instead she gave another victory speech after Obama had clinched the delegate count. The Clinton people have been playing the media like Lucy setting up the football for Charlie Brown. Oops! Hah-hah! Better luck next time, sucker!

The New York Democratic delegation still couldn't wait to throw their support to Obama ,so they gathered on the steps of the Capitol today to "endorse" Hillary for "endorsing" Obama — or for at least saying she would do so.

So what will happen Saturday? Who knows, when you have advocates like the spokeswoman on MSNBC Thursday morning who was saying that Hillary had the power of 18 million voters behind her, and she could call the tune on the vice president choice: "If she wants it, he can't refuse her." Since Obama so far does not appear to have plans to attend the big endorsement Saturday, he may be wary of getting into one of these Lucy moments, too.

When I see grizzled old warhorses like Charlie Rangel, her New York colleague and chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, shaking his head and wondering publicly what the heck the Clinton campaign could be thinking, it really makes me wonder how politically savvy Hillary Clinton really is.

We assume that because she was married to Mr. Political Animal, had been First Lady and was elected to the Senate, she MUST be politically savvy herself. But much of her life has been spent as a lawyer in the private sector, and her White House years were mostly spent in ceremonial duties — except for spearheading the health care reform project, which she made political hash out of.

Her election to the Senate in New York? With her name recognition and her bumbling opponent (filling in when Rudy Giuliani got cancer), that required little political acumen. As for Bill — his "help" for her in this campaign has made it clear that he has lost his political touch.

Her end game couldn't have been more politically wrong-headed. In retrospect, it seems either that her team headed by campaign manager Terry McAuliffe was spectacularly incompetent, or that she stubbornly ignored good advice right until the end. (And beyond the end, as we're seeing.) Say what you will about George W. Bush as a president, as a campaigner he listened to people who appeared to know what they were doing.

The football will be teed up again Saturday. Field goal or fumble? Stay tuned.

Posted by Rich Somerville at 02:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sandy Huffaker/Cagle Cartoons

Instead of the warm, inclusive moment many Democrats were hoping for with Hillary Clinton's speech Tuesday night, she instead asked the question "What does Hillary want?", then proceeded to ignore an answer. While Barack Obama, who went over the top in delegates Tuesday, was using a large chunk of his speech to effusively praise her, Clinton not only couldn't bring herself to acknowledge her defeat, but she could barely bring herself to mention his name.

What's going on here? Whatever it is, we know it's probably too sly by half, and excessively Machiavellian. While watching her speech, I had thought perhaps she was insisting on having one last ego jolt for winning South Dakota before bowing out of the race, freeing her delegates and embracing Obama the next day. But in watching the maneuverings this morning, with even many of her supporters and allies scratching their heads, it's clear there is some ill-conceived strategy playing out.

Hillary's end game has been to blame the shortcomings of her campaign on sexism, even as her campaign has made subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle references to race. In the last couple of weeks, she has stopped saying publicly that Obama can't win the general election, but her team was still making that argument in private with superdelegates. Even after Obama became the presumptive nominee, her campaign manager introduced her Tuesday night as "the next president of the United States."

Meanwhile, she makes clear that would be open to — no, is owed — being on the ticket as vice president, and surrogates are carrying out some kind of petition strategy. So what is she saying — that if she is not the VP choice her supporters will bring chaos to the convention, boycott the election or even vote for John McCain? Is she threatening the Democratic Party — or the country?

If so, it's certainly hypocritical. She has been saying that she shouldn't be forced by party leaders or the media to exit the race, and now she is using the same tactics to try to force her way onto the ticket. If she had been the presumptive nominee, does anyone think she would let Obama declare himself her veep? Of course not. She would tell him, "I won — deal with it."

And if someone in his own party could bully Obama, how does he answer critics who say he wouldn't be able to stand up to I'm-a-Dinner-Jacket, as Maureen Dowd calls the Iranian leader.

So what does Hillary want? I'm afraid to find out.

Posted by Rich Somerville at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Olle Johansson/Cagle Cartoons

Whew! The evening before a big election is a time to take a deep breath — not only for candidates who have been frantically campaigning, but those of us in the media helping voters make an informed decision.

I was particularly focused on efforts on the opinion page — the question-and-answer sessions with all the supervisor candidates on the ballot (as well as Johanna Rodoni, who was not), the candidates’ My Word guest columns, and election letters from readers.

All of those, along with editorials, news stories and useful links can be found online at our special “Decision 2008” election page at www.Times-Standard.com/election/. (We printed and posted online more than 100 letters from readers on candidate and election issues.)

A caller today said he appreciated all the information — that it definitely helped him make his decisions. If you’re waking up this morning still unsure about how to vote, you’ll find what you need on our Web election page.

The Times-Standard Editorial Board was impressed with the quality of the candidates, and the tone of the campaign was on a generally high level — focusing on issues rather than personalities or “dirty tricks.”

An anonymous caller tried to bait the Times-Standard into digging into the personal life of one of the candidates. I said it wasn’t any of our business, being unrelated to the job of supervisor, and that I didn’t think it was the caller’s business either.

I went around and around with her for 15 minutes, asking her why she had to know. She would only say that she had a right to know about the person who would be representing her. Only at the end of the conversation did I get her to admit that she wasn’t a resident of the district in question.

Other issues that seemed to be more petty than substantive — whether somebody could be a full-time supervisor if they spent a few hours a week on another task, or whether it was right to accept a donation from an Indian tribe.

But in general, considering the sometimes polarized politics of Humboldt County, decorum reigned.

It was a different story in Nevada County, where I did a stint as an editor a few years back. Once, a last-minute whispering campaign said a candidate had rats in his restaurant. (An inspector had found mouse droppings some years before.) Not only did the candidate lose, but his restaurant soon went out of business.

In a particularly nasty supervisor race, one candidate had nails strewn on his driveway, while another was the subject of postcards titled “Supervisor for Sale?,” accusing her of dispensing governmental favors for campaign donations. Included was an invoice with county letterhead, later proven to be faked.

Once, at a meeting of the county Republican Central Committee, anger bubbled up over an old slight about the lack of an endorsement, leading to a fistfight in the street in front of the meeting hall.

Humboldt County seems polite by comparison — knock on wood!

Posted by Rich Somerville at 06:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)