The Sac Rag

Interesting article in The Bee today, wondering if the pro-Arena campaign was supposed to lose:

The big question floating around town Wednesday was whether Joe and Gavin Maloof’s actions in the campaign simply reflected their volatility and lack of political savvy, or whether they systematically sabotaged the campaign because they prefer that a new arena be built next to Arco in North Natomas or want to move the team to another city.

Veteran political consultant David Townsend said he thinks the sabotage was deliberate.

“I know a professional campaign when I see it, and this is a professional campaign,” Townsend said. “This is not all by happenstance. … This was an orchestrated, well-thought-out campaign to tube Q&R.”

Whether Ross was behind it or the Maloofs were simply clients out of control, he doesn’t know. Ross has not returned Bee phone calls about the campaign.

That would be on interesting explanation for the idiocy of that burger commercial.

TZ of Sactown Royalty is making all us bloggers look bad by getting like, interviews and stuff. Using the phone even! He’s got some quotes from Sandy Smoley, Chairwoman of the Yes on Q & R campaign.

On the incredible margin of defeat:
“80-20 is huge. That was startling to me, the magnitude. … But if people don’t understand a measure, they vote no. … With the Maloofs pulling out, it was way overwhelming.”

That’s one way to put it, Sandy. Another way to put it is that when people don’t want their taxes raised, they vote no on raising their taxes. Yet another way to put it is that the voters understood your idea plenty, and just decided they didn’t like it.

I’ll go ahead and give Smoley credit, she probably means that the voters didn’t understand it because it was poorly written and not well thought out. The Maloofs pulling out did make it harder to understand what was going on–hard to understand why the stewards of our public trust would leave so much out and still expect a yes vote.