POWAY TURNING BLUE?
Poway has been a GOP stronghold forever as evidenced by the long run of Republicans on our City Council. Trump supporters rally here in Poway every Sunday to the positive (and negative) horn honkers as they pass by. But more Powegians voted for Biden than Trump in 2020. At first I figured this was a Never-Trumper thing where Republican voters were making a one-time exception in order to prevent Trump returning to office. But it turns out that Poway voted even MORE for Harris in 2024 than they did Biden in 2020. What?
I was swapping some tweets with Zack Gianino (@ZackGianino is a leader in the San Diego Young Republicans). He shared a graphic that nearly all cities in San Diego County shifted more Republican, except Poway and Coronado. Weird, huh? But there are other signs. The Poway City Council is getting rocked. An aggressive “change candidate” in Tony Blain defeated the GOP endorsed choice in District 2. Now we see Caylin Frank, and another other GOP endorsement, losing her District 4 seat to Jenny Maeda (I assume a Democrat or Independent). Could the City in the Country be a lot less “country” than we thought? Are the new Poway housing developments attracting more independents and democrats? Are Poway Republicans fed up with the GOP and converting to Democrats? Interesting questions. I remember Poway Democratic Club President Amit Asaravala @amit_asaravala telling me in a podcast episode how Poway Dems are growing and Poway GOP is declining.
PRESIDENT BIDEN PARDONS SON HUNTER.
After months of repeatedly saying he wouldn’t pardon his son, President Biden pardoned Hunter and then dashed off on a trip to Africa. This has the whole political world in a tizzy. GOP accusing Biden of being a liar (that’s pretty rich when they support Trump and his lies). Some Dems rightfully condemning Biden for flipping on this issue, particularly when Dems were trying to claim the “rule of law” virtue signal. I don’t have much of a problem with Hunter Biden getting pardoned. I get that Biden is a father and wants to defend his son. This is a conflict of interest, no doubt. Reminds me of the conflict of interest with Mariam Kim-Phelps at Poway Unified School District being both a protective mother and a Superintendent. I just wish Biden pardoned many other people that have been found guilty of similar crimes. We’re talking about drugs, tax and gun crimes. But clearly not cases of murder or other egregious violations of people’s rights. I’m sure there is a long list of such pardons that could be me made. I’ll start with an important one: Ross Ulbricht. This guy is serving life in prison in Arizona for developing a website. Sure, the website was the Silk Road that transacted drugs and other criminal activities in the Dark Web, but Ulbricht wasn’t committing those crimes. He was just a web developer. Ulbricht was needs to be released.
POLITICAL ENERGY KEEPS RISING.
I find it interesting how politics has now crept into just about every segment of society. So many benign topics can have political angles. Sometimes these are astute recognitions of the truth. Other times they are just wacky conspiracy theories. It’s just so much more political energy now than in decades past. I wonder if there is a way to bottle up all of that political energy and transform it into something good. Maybe that should be a goal of the John Riley Project.
MLB’S HAIRBRAINED GOLDEN AT-BAT IDEA.
Perhaps you have heard this crazy idea from MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred. The idea is each team would get one opportunity to break the lineup and put your best hitter up the plate immediately. For example, you’ve got the bases loaded with 2 out down 1 in the 9th inning, you don’t want to send your weak hitting SS to the plate. Instead you can call on Shohei Ohtani. Look, I really like the new rules in baseball: pitch clock, banning shift, throws to 1B, and base sizes. I even like the “ghost runner” rule in extra innings (except that they call it a ghost runner… it’s a REAL runner! Ghost runners are imaginary runners from our baseball games in our youth.) But I just don’t get this Golden At-Bat idea. Maybe it is a well-timed news story during a lull in baseball news stories. Perhaps the person that would most object to this new rule is the TV broadcast graphics guy that will now have to quickly alter his “Only 5 batters until Shohei Ohtani!” at any moment. Him and just about every longtime baseball fan.
JENNY, JENNY. WHO CAN I TURN TO?
She did it. Jenny Maeda, the political newbie that jumped into the election when nobody else would challenge Poway incumbent Caylin Frank, just won the District 4 election… by only 12 votes! Wow. Many of us have been keeping track of the San Diego Registrar of Voters as the numbers churned out with updates every few days. Frank had the early lead, but Maeda quickly passed her and has retained the lead in a razor close race. This is a wild one. I expect Maeda to enthusiastically embrace her job and likely try to minimize further development in Poway, particularly in South Poway. I just wonder if this is all part of a radical shift in local leadership. For so long Steve Vaus and so many other Republicans, backed by “The Old Poway Guard”, have dominated local politics. But there has been so much anger from locals about the incredible amount of housing construction and the resulting challenges with traffic, infrastructure, etc. But there is a whole new level of anger as a leaked closed council meeting presented our local officials mocking local residents, including some by name. It just confirmed the opinions of so many others that this council doesn’t truly listen to its constituents. Well, now here we are. Maeda defeats Frank, Blain wins District 2 over the “chosen candidate” in Jared Wilson, and now we have the resignation of Brian Pepin. What’s happening in Poway?
SPEAKING OF BRIAN PEPIN…
Looks like Pepin has pooped out. He chose to resign just 2 years into his 4-year term. Pepin marketed himself as a local family man and active Republican community guy. Seems his political consulting business is taking off, so there are greener pastures elsewhere than serving on City Council. Just seems odd when a candidate puts so much effort into winning an election (to say nothing of the money raised from supporters… they must be pissed) only to give it up half way into his first term. The other angle to this story is the suspicious timing of the resignation which seems intentional to allow Mayor Vaus to exert great influence, some say hand pick, Pepin’s replacement. As the world turns in Poway…