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Cavala: “Jackie Speier Gets 80% of the Vote, and I Wish I Could Take Credit”…But I Can’t”
By Bill Cavala
A veteran of over 30 years in Sacramento
Jackie Speier is a client, but she’s also one of the very few figures in public life who really doesn’t need a political campaign to win office. As she contemplated re-entering public life a year ago, a friend surveyed her chances against the popular, long term incumbent in her district. While voters liked the incumbent, it showed Jackie winning almost 3-1.
When the incumbent announced his retirement, opening a vacancy, several other candidates tested the waters – and found themselves on the short end of 6-1 or 8-1 odds respectively.
Yesterday, Speier garnered almost 80% of the vote in a low-turnout Special Election against two Republicans, a well-qualified Democrat and a Green – endorsed by the anti-labor but otherwise left-leaning Bay Guardian.
Speier’s campaign put out one piece of mail. No television or radio. The only money she spent (of the over a million dollars raised) was devoted to ‘ground’ activity: phoning voters to remind them of the election and to invite them to one of the fourty-four face-to-face ‘coffee’ meetings set up by our young professionals, Alex Tourk and Jake Saperstein.
Speier’s overwhelming victory was a personal one. As a local Supervisor, then Member of the Assembly and of the State Senate, her conduct was non only scandal free, but without the usual ethical blemish’s that mar most long-time politicians.
More, Speier took on waste, inefficiency and corruption in government where she found it – even if that embarrassed her friends or her party. She never thought of tax dollars as her own, and never allowed others in government to act as though it was theirs either. She always acted as a trustee of tax dollars, conscious of her fiduciary responsibility.
To the political community this made Speier – in the terminology of former Pro Tem John Burton – a “goodie two-shoes”. Speier said the same thing behind closed doors in party caucuses that she said in public. She could be a stern, mother-like figure saying, ‘what are you thinking??’ While it would be a stretch to say she acted as a conscience (the political community tends to care more for the appearance of propriety than propriety), she was the closest thing to it.
Her tenacity when a set of facts convinced her of the right course was legendary.
A cynical capitol press corps found her honesty and transparency useful, and she
Received the benefit of their work, but without the usual pandering that’s grist for the mill in the Captiol (Cf. Dan Walters column today). The Chronicle editorial endorsed her with the backhanded compliment that she represented consumer interests “as much as anyone” in the Capitol. (You can’t exchange cynical wisecracks with Jackie).
Those of us who have been successful in this business know that while individual voters can be inattentive to the point of stupidity, electorates have a way of absorbing information and making wise collective decisions. Campaigns are an effort to effect this process by supplying prejudicial information. But when electorates come to a conclusion, they cease to be in the market for information – they ‘tune out’ a campaign as ambient noise.
Speier’s 28 years of consistent action in the service of the public’s interest has been recognized by the voters of San Francisco and the Peninsula. They know the real deal when they see it. It’s how a democracy is supposed to work.
By Bill Cavala
A veteran of over 30 years in Sacramento
Bill Cavala was Deputy Director of the Assembly Speaker’s Office of Member Services where he worked for over 30 years.
He attended undergraduate and graduate school in the 1960’s and received a doctorate in political science at UC Berkeley. He taught political science at UC Berkeley during the 1970's while he worked part-time for the State Assembly.
Cavala left teaching at UC Berkeley and went to work for Assembly Speaker Willie Brown in 1981 until his tenure as Speaker ended in 1995, and he has worked for his five successors as Speaker up to and including Speaker Fabian Nunez.
Mr. Cavala manages election campaigns for Democratic candidates.
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