Tag Archives: Mike Nevin

Bay Area

Terrible ads all over the place: Prop 82 and SD-8

The good folks over at No On 82 are creating some very nice little ads featuring teachers, principals, and parents stating how Prop 82 would create a massive bureacracy, a “parent tax”, and generally be disastrous for the state b/c uh, rich people would be a little less rich…and uh… well, you get the jist.

The problem is: they are all fake.  Yup, all actors.  Those “teachers” that you’ll see, uh, maybe they taught a summer stock class.  From Matier and Ross:

Take, for example, the new ad opposing actor and director Rob Reiner’s universal preschool initiative, Proposition 82. It warns of a costly new bureaucracy and even the possibility of a “parent tax,” and features a school principal, teachers and kids.

They’re all actors. According to the call that went out from Ava Shevitt Casting in Santa Monica, these were the requirements:
***
Teacher: “Female/Asian, Caucasian, 40-45 … professional manner, warm & engaging, authoritative but gentle.”
***
Student: “Female, multi-ethnic, 13-15 … dark hair, appealing, warm & engaging, bright, adorable, thoughtful, insightful, poised, inspirational.”
***
California Teachers Association officials, who support the preschool initiative, aren’t amused by the fake school crew.  “Using actors to portray teachers is misleading and deceptive,” sniped Sandra Jackson, spokeswoman for the union. (SF Chron 5/21/06)

The fact that the No on 82 folks are stooping to using fake teacher is more than a little funny/ironic.  Can’t they find one teacher who doesn’t like 82?  Well perhaps not…

As an aside, check out that article for a funny Jerry Brown story. 

Moving to Dem on Dem ads and back to a subject I touched on earlier: SD-8’s bizarre ads.  Mike Nevin wants to appear again on these pages.  This time he tries to tie Yee to Schwarzenegger.  Well, ok, but then he takes a page out of “Girly-Man” Schwarzenegger’s book.  He puts a picture of Yee’s head onto a Hans and Franz picture with Ahnold. I think it’s funny that we get in a huff when Arnold uses this stuff, but then we do it to each other.  Meanwhile Lou Papan is running clean ads on TV and in mailers.

Here it is, click on the ads to make them bigger.

Mike Nevin’s Pump You Up Ad

Pump You up ad  Back of ad

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SD-8: A primary campaign descending into the muck

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As you can probably guess from my username, I live in San Francisco.  More specifically, I live in SD-8, so I’m currently represented by Sen. Speier.  She’s termed out and is running for Lt. Gov.  However, the race to replace her has gotten really, really ugly in the last few days.  In the last week, I received about 10 mailers.  However, these 2 stuck out for their ugliness.  First I received Nevin’s attack on Yee, which was soon followed by Yee’s attack on Nevin.  Click on them to see them in greater detail.  There’s more on the flip…

Nevin on Yee

   

Yee on Nevin

Both of these mailers are negative garbage.  Both make me want to vote for Lou Papan.  Oh yeah, did they not mention that there is another candidate running.  Yeah, Lou Papan, the longime assemblyman from San Mateo county, is also running for the seat. 

Personally, I’m not totally sure why Nevin decided to go so negative with this attack on Yee.  It’s easily debunked.  Yee has received only one contribution from the oil companies, and his record certainly doesn’t indicate that he is beholden to BigOil.  But, that even being said, I’m not sure high gas prices are the most important issue in such progressive district.  For one, I’m sure you could find many evironmentalists that aren’t that upset by high gas prices.  Personally, I’d rather that money go to the oil companies in a windfall, but perhaps the high prices will begin to ween our state (and nation) off the bottle.

The prescription drug issues that Yee focused on are a bit easier to understand.  Nevin has worked in a firm that does some lobbying.  That immediately opens up the door to imputed positions.  Nevin is just the victim of that.  Whether Nevin actually worked against Prop 79 is unclear, but it’s certainly an overstatement to say that he is beholden to drug interests.

Of course, once again, we waste our time with meaningless attacks.  Perhaps both of these candidates would be better off by saving their money for mailers that inform the candidates who they are, not attack their opponent.

Capitol Weekley says this of the race:

SD 8 – This district includes parts of San Francisco County and most of San
Mateo County.

There’s been bad blood between Lou Papan and Mike Nevin since the 2001 redistricting, when Nevin accused Papan of drawing him out of an Assembly district to ease the path for Papan’s daughter, Gina. Papan denies the allegation, and even if it were true, it didn’t work, as Gina Papan lost to Gene Mullin. Conventional wisdom has Papan in the race to help draw votes away from the other San Mateo candidate, Nevin. But Nevin did pick up the endorsement of Leland Yee’s hometown newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle. Capitol Weekley 5/18/06

For more about this nasty race, see [Around the Capitol], which has lots of articles about the race.  Three taped debates will be airing on PeninsulaTV (Ch. 26), beginning on May 23.  Check the website for showtimes.