San Diego councilwoman to face ex-police chief in mayoral runoff

[realFedUp]

http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/story/13304763p-14147043c.html

San Diego councilwoman to face ex-police chief in mayoral runoff
By ELLIOT SPAGAT, Associated Press Writer

Published 3:05 am PDT Wednesday, July 27, 2005
SAN DIEGO (AP) - This troubled seaside city that saw three mayors hold office this month will have to wait until November to elect a fourth.

Councilwoman and surf shop owner Donna Frye, the leading candidate in a field of 11, fell short of the majority she needed in Tuesday's contest to avoid a runoff and will face former Police Chief Jerry Sanders on Nov. 8.

With all precincts reporting in the nonpartisan contest, Frye had 104,872 votes, or 43 percent, while Sanders followed with 65,399 or 27 percent in unofficial returns.

Frye, a 53-year-old Democrat, hoped a majority of the voters would elect her to the office that eluded her last year when she narrowly lost a write-in campaign to unseat Dick Murphy, and then only after a court battle.

Earlier this month, Murphy resigned to give the city "a fresh start." Less than 72 hours later, his interim replacement lost the job when a jury convicted him of corruption charges for taking payments from a strip club owner in a failed scheme to overturn a ban on patrons touching dancers at nude bars.

Sanders, 55, who served as police chief from 1993 to 1999, cast himself as a turnaround specialist during the short campaign. He survived a late surge by businessman Steve Francis, who poured about $2 million into his campaign. Francis got 56,887 votes or 24 percent. Both men are Republicans and together won a majority of the vote, giving Sanders an opportunity to gain ground on Frye.

continued

[MindPilot]

1. I think Donna will take it in November

And remember Toni Atkins is our Mayor right now, so she will I'm sure be doing a lot of bridge building and fence fixing in the next couple months.

And the bottom line, although my vote will go to Donna, we could do a hell of a lot worse than Chief Saunders.

[cascadiance]

2. I agree... We are certainly in position where one way or the other...

we will have a better mayor and situation downtown than if Murphy were still in office, or Ron Roberts or Steve Francis had been elected. Sanders or Fry being in charge would be better than any of those other options we might have had to endure had Donna not started her write-in campaign/quest many months ago.

I do think that between Frye, Atkins, and Sanders who I'm guessing will meet together on the side occasionally to talk about long term strategies, that you'll have enough agreement that they can build consensus more easily on how to handle issues until December rolls around. Francis would have made that sort of effort difficult I think. And if Sanders wins, we still have Donna in a strong position on the City Council and don't have to go through another election to replace her (which might not be someone we like as much either).

[realFedUp]

3. city's retribution for not counting the votes the first time....

gads, this is a prime example of Republicans gone bad.

[rinsd]

4. Let's not forget that SD switches to a strong mayor format in Jan 06

[cascadiance]

5. Interesting commentary from Steve Francis's Democrat cousin

Voice of San Diego had a nice commentary written by Steve Francis's cousin explaining how his campaign was too fraught with manipulation and trickiness and not enough on substance. She noted she felt that he really was a pretty decent guy inside, even if she disagreed a lot with what he stands for, but that he made a lot of mistakes on how he ran his campaign and who he let get involved with it:

From:
http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=euLTJbMUKvH&b=312470&ct=1247467
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My Cousin Steve: Dirty Tricks Don't Work

By LYNN MACEY
Voice Guest Columnist
Friday, July 29, 2005

My cousin, wealthy businessman Steve Francis, learned an expensive lesson when he lost his bid to become San Diego's next mayor. And it goes far beyond the nearly $2 million he spent in the last 60 days.

The lesson is this:

You can't run a "Clean Up City Hall" campaign with dirty political tricks. Even marginally dirty.

As a Democrat, I didn't agree with my cousin's platform, but as a member of his family, I love him. He's basically a good guy, whose quiet diligence has enabled him to succeed in many fields.

However, as a veteran of the advertising industry, I felt relieved to see his campaign's negative ad tactics fail. I think he was horribly mishandled by his handlers.
...