Posts from — September 2008

Pensacola City Councilman Sam Hall has come out in favour of full City-County unification:

I like the Jacksonville model.

My hope is that the Century, ECUA, Escambia County, and Pensacola governments agree to come under one authority.

I’m all for consolidation of certain departments and services; but I much prefer City expansion to the kind of full City-County consolidation Councilman Hall is advocating.

The reason cities exist in the first place is to better serve citizens of urbanised areas. It just doesn’t make sense for an urban area like Pensacola to have the same government as a rural area like Walnut Hill. Both areas have different needs and priorities.

Likewise, I feel my goal is more feasible. Full City-County consolidation would be fiercely resisted by many on the north side of the County. The focus should be on working toward a strong City of Pensacola.

Retired general and former Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark will be in Pensacola tomorrow. The event will be held at American Legion Post 33, located at 1401 West Intendencia Street (at Barrancas), from 1:00-2:00 PM.

District 2 Councilman Sam Hall posted today on the proposed Automatic Aid Response Agreement which I railed against last week.  It’s worthwhile reading.

Following up on my recent post on City candidate websites, I’m going to run a short series of posts commenting on various candidate sites, where I deem comments appropriate.

First up is Peter Saccomanno’s site, prosperityforpensacola.com. Saccomanno, who is challenging incumbent District 2 Councilman Sam Hall, has taken the unusual step of picking a domain name that doesn’t have his name in it at all. It’s not a big deal, though, because the site is the top result at Google for a “Peter Saccomanno” search, and that’s probably how most people would look for it.

The site itself looks pretty good. It was done by local outfit Geeks Web Design, which has also done sites for Saccomanno’s father-in-law, “Papa” Don Schroeder’s radio and calling card ventures. Friends of the family, I guess.

The first funny thing that caught my eye was the “Links” section on the right hand side of the page. Saccomanno lists out entities which seem to be out of place: WPNN, IGP, the Levin Papantonio law firm, and the Pensacola Interstate Fair, or rather, Don Schroeder, Fred Levin, and the Frenkel family. It’s weird for a campaign site, but you’ve got to appreciate how open he is about his big-money backers.

Secondly, I’m not sure Saccomanno is familiar with the district in which he’s running. There’s a fancy Flash graphic at the top of the page with rotating images of Pensacola landmarks, but they’re all either not in his district (Civic Centre, Saenger Theatre) or not even in the City of Pensacola (Portofino Resort, Fairgrounds). In the case of the latter, maybe this is another shoutout to his big money backers, as it was a Levin who developed Portofino, and the Frenkel family who owns the fair. As the very last frame, there’s a split image of Cordova Mall and Sacred Heart Hospital, almost as if thrown in as an afterthought. “Oh yeah, we should probably put in a picture of something that’s actually in my district.”

I could do a whole post on his platform (and maybe I will) but the big standouts are:

“We need to work to make Pensacola a premier destination for family cruises.”

Sorry, it’s just not going to happen. It’s been pursued before, thoroughly, and it’s just not in the cards. I don’t like the port either, but pretending we are going to turn it into some sort of major cruise terminal when there are already two in the region (Mobile and New Orleans) is unrealistic and a waste of our time.

“I will propose that when the Waste Treatment plant moves, we lease the land to a company that will build a family water park.”

Seriously? Where did that idea come from? I’m all for new jobs, new industry, etc., but does Saccomanno want Pensacola to be Orlando, just one big theme park? Secondly, where are all these water park visitors going to park? And if I were looking to build a water park, would I want to put it on a big polluted piece of land on the shore of a big polluted body of water? Nope.

The City of Pensacola is in really bad shape. We need real leadership, with real ideas and real solutions, not empty proposals and pipe dreams.

This year, more City candidates than ever have embraced the digital age and developed campaign websites.  Here’s a listing of all the current candidate websites:

District 2

• Sam Hall
• Peter Saccomanno

District 4

• Larry B. Johnson

District 8 (At-Large)

• Diane Mack
• Joe Buehler

District 9 (At-Large)

• Megan Benson Pratt
• Wendell Rich

Mayor of Pensacola

• Mike Wiggins
• C. J. Lewis

Every Friday through the general election I will lay out my prediction as to how I think the presidential race will shake out.

As most of you know, national popular vote is irrelevant in presidential elections. The presidency is awarded based on votes in the Electoral College, which are apportioned according to popular vote within states. The magic number is 270; either candidate that attains that number of Electoral College votes will have achieved a majority and will win the presidency.

My prediction as of 26 September 2008:

Obama 286 McCain 252

Colorado is back in Obama’s column after a one-week stay in McCainland. Likewise, Ohio moves back into McCain territory after I gave it to Obama last week. Ohio is very tight, with most polling within the margin of error. I’m giving it to him based on a +4 Fox/Rasmussen poll. Lastly, Virginia moves back into Obama’s camp after a string of favourable polls.

This has been a hard week for the McCain/Palin ticket. Poll after poll shows that Americans just don’t trust John McCain with the economy, and the economy’s been the big bad news day after day. And Palin’s unfavourables continue to climb each time she ends up in front of a camera.

Palin sat down earlier this week with CBS News’ Katie Couric. Boy, was it funny:

Couric
Explain to me why [being governor of Alaska] enhances your foreign policy credentials.

Palin
Well, it certainly does because our– our next door neighbors are foreign countries. They’re in the state that I am the executive of. And there in Russia–

Couric
Have you ever been involved with any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?

Palin
We have trade missions back and forth. We– we do– it’s very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where– where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border. It is– from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to– to our state.

Battleground States

These are the states which are seriously in play and could go either way. I’ve awarded them above based on trend data and gut feeling.

CO FL IN MN NC NH OH VA

Among these states, Ohio, North Carolina, New Hampshire, and Virginia are razor thin. Indiana has really tightened up and is now classified as a “battleground state” in my book, up from “competitive for McCain” last week. Obama has caught up in Florida after McCain opened up a bit of a lead in the last couple weeks; McCain realistically is about +2 in Florida right now.

North Carolina has tightened up really fast, McCain having a sizeable lead just 7-10 days ago. Recent polling is all within the margin of error.

Competitive States

Obama is competitive in: MO NV WV

Nevada is pretty tight. Any tighter and I’d move it to battleground.

I’ve removed Montana from this list as the latest polling has McCain with an 11-point lead.

McCain is competitive in: MI PA NM WA

Pennsylvania is back here as the PA Biden bump seems to have worn off and McCain has made up some ground.

While he’s polling within ten points in each, Michigan and Washington are both longshots for McCain.

Currently, the City of Pensacola and Escambia County have a mutual agreement to provide police and fire services to each other when requested. For example, if there was a fire in the County, but there was a Pensacola Fire Department station closer to the fire, Escambia County could request that PFD respond, and we typically would.  And vice-versa.

Tomorrow evening the Pensacola City Council will vote on an “Automatic Aid Response Agreement”, which would automate that process in certain areas, meaning basically that the closest units, whether City or County, would respond.

That all sounds great, in theory.  In practice, City police and fire responds into the County much more often than the County responds into the City.  My problem with that is that City residents pay a premium in taxes for the better services of City police and fire.

An example of this is the fire last year at Jerry’s Cajun Café.  Jerry’s is located in unincorporated Escambia County, in one of a bunch of stupid enclaves created by our haphazard City limits.  Even though PFD Station 6 is located about a half-mile from Jerry’s (you can see one from the other), it was a County fire and the City was not requested to respond for some time, and by then, the place was mostly gone.

Some folks say that’s a shame.

I say you get what you pay for.

Now, if Jerry Mistretta voluntarily annexed into the City, and paid City taxes, PFD trucks would have been there before it got out of the kitchen, and maybe he’d only have been closed for a few weeks instead of seven months.

Why would we as City taxpayers want to give County residents access to our better services for free?

Links

• City Council Neighbourhood Services Committee video (wmv)

Every few years, our nation engages in a debate about energy. This is typically fueled (pun intended) by high gas prices as a result of dwindling supplies of oil.

To their credit, both McCain and Obama are talking about energy, but before I give you my take on their positions, let’s discuss some facts to put the issue in proper context.

The United States consumes nearly 21 million barrels of petroleum per day, making us the largest consumer of oil on the face of the Earth. We make up just 4% of the world’s population, yet we consume 25% of the world’s oil reserves. Today, the U.S. imports nearly 66% of our crude oil from volatile regions of the world. Oftentimes, from nations that use these oil proceeds to fund anti-American terrorist groups.

To put this in its proper context, the U.S. spends $500 billion on petroleum imports, annually. As a consequence, we then spend billions of dollars on health care as a direct result of the pollution associated with the extraction, refinement, transportation, and combustion of oil.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, we control approximately 3% of the world’s known oil reserves. (That’s not a typo). Drilling cannot make the U.S. energy independent because we don’t control enough of it to influence world oil prices. U.S. crude oil production has declined 47 percent since its peak in 1970. You don’t have to be an economist to understand that. It’s like playing poker with only two cards.

So where does our domestic oil come from? U.S. oil production currently occurs onshore in the lower 48 states (2.9 million barrels per day (mbd)), offshore (1.4 mbd, primarily in the Gulf of Mexico), and in Alaska (0.7 mbd). Government agencies estimates that 10.4 billion barrels of oil are “technically recoverable” in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The term “technically recoverable” is important because the deeper the oil reserves the more expensive it becomes to recover and transport back to shore. It doesn’t make economic sense to spend $8 to recover a gallon of gas that you will turn around and sell for $4.

Currently, the oil reserves in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) of the lower 48 states are off limits under the federal moratorium. Lifting the OCS moratorium would not increase production until 2017 and would only amount to 0.2 million barrels per day–less than 1 percent of current consumption.

During the Republican National Convention, the delegates broke into a chorus of “drill, baby, drill” to the delight of Saudi Arabia. However, the facts do not support this as a viable option to lead us on a path towards energy security. Once again, the Republicans are on the wrong side of the issue.

More drilling will not reduce gas prices. The U.S. Department of Energy projects that opening ANWR would lower gasoline prices at the pump by a mere 2 cents per gallon. Moreover, lifting the moratorium on drilling in the OCS would reduce the price of a gallon of gasoline by at most 6 cents. To make matters worse, it would take ten years to permit, drill, refine, and distribute these reserves. Inflation would quickly erode those 6 pennies.

Here is another fact that eludes John McCain. Oil is traded as a global commodity and its price is set on the world market. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) could simply reduce exports to artificially increase the world-wide price of oil putting us right back where we were before, with the additional pollution. Thanks John.

The U.S. has, as a nation, decided to export dirty manufacturing and refining practices to other countries because we value things like clean air and water. Whether you call yourself an “environmentalist” or not, we don’t like it when our children suffer from respiratory diseases our neurological disorders. Being “pro-life” means caring for children beyond the embryonic stage.

While McCain promises more of the same “drill, baby, drill” policies of George Bush and Dick Cheney, Obama brings a series of fresh ideas to move us away from a depleting resource that has left our nation funding both sides of this war in Iraq.

The increase in U.S. automobile fuel economy standards to 35 miles per gallon of gasoline (mandated by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007) is projected to save more than 1.1 million barrels of oil per day in 2020. That is about half of current U.S. imports from the Persian Gulf.

Obama also calls for investing in America by focusing on energy conservation and renewable sources of clean energy that we can control. This puts Americans back at work and leading the world to solve this energy crisis.

Obama has the vision and courage to take on Big Oil and bring about the jobs of the future through innovation and technology. He is the only candidate with the independence as a Washington outside to bring about real change. Obama has earned my respect, and my vote!

From the Left is an area Democratic activist and a guest blogger at Progressive Pensacola.

This is a slow news week, politically, both locally and nationally. As we creep up to the first presidential debate Friday night, I want to highlight some polls from yesterday and today. Colorado is as close as it gets, and it’s a vital battleground. If Obama doesn’t win Virginia (although polling is looking good there too, the last few days), he will need Colorado and its nine EVs. I’ve had Colorado in Obama’s column for a most of the summer but in last week’s predictions I had it in McCain’s. It appears Obama is regaining some ground, according to two recent polls.

CO: Obama 49, McCain 45

Quinnipac/WSJ, 9/14-9/21 • 1,418 LV, MoE ±2.6%

I like the PPP poll below but this Qunnipac poll is probably a little closer to reality, as it utilised a larger sample and polled over the period of a week. This state is not safe for Obama by any means, though. It’s very much a battleground, and that’s evident in that 11% of Obama supporters and 13% of McCain supporters said they could change their mind before Election Day.

This poll also shows that the economy is overwhelmingly the top issue for Coloradoans, and I think we all know that John McCain is a little blunder-happy when it comes to talking about the economy.

Q: Which of the following will be the single most important issue in your vote in the election for President this year?

• The economy: 51%
• War in Iraq: 12%
• Energy policy: 10%
• Illegal immigration: 8%
• Terrorism: 7%
• Healthcare: 7%

Even if you combine “War in Iraq” with “terrorism”, which is fair, you still only get 19% for war/terror/national security, which is about in line with the PPP poll below.

Also, voters seem to be concerned about McCain’s age. It’s a bit of a push question, but it’s a WSJ polls, so eh!

Q: If elected, John McCain would be the first person to become President at age 72. Does that make you more likely to vote for McCain, less likely to vote for McCain, or does it not make a difference?

• More likely: 2%
• Less likely: 30%
• No difference: 68%

And here is a crucial number:

Q: Who do you think better understands the economy - John McCain or Barack Obama?

Among independents

• Obama: 47%
• McCain: 38%

CO: Obama 51, McCain 44

PPP, 9/20-9/21 • 1,084 LV, MoE ±3%

Impressive result for Obama here. This is an IVR (robo-voice) poll which covered basics only as opposed to the in-depth, live interview poll above. A few other questions from the poll:

Q: Are you firmly committed to your choice for President, or could you change your mind between now and the election?

• Firmly committed: 91%
• Could change mind: 9%

Q: Did Barack Obama’s selection of Joe Biden as his running mate make you more or less likely to vote for him?

• More likely: 36%
• Less likely: 30%
• No difference: 34%

Q: Did John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate make you more or less likely to vote for him?

• More likely: 38%
• Less likely: 47%
• No difference: 15%

Ouch… maybe Palin’s not playing so well among moderates?

Q: I am going to name 7 issues. Which of these is most important to you?

• Economy and jobs: 51%
• War in Iraq: 18%
• Morals and family values: 9%
• Taxes: 6%
• Immigration: 6%
• Education: 5%
• Healthcare: 4%

Every Friday through the general election I will lay out my prediction as to how I think the presidential race will shake out.

As most of you know, national popular vote is irrelevant in presidential elections. The presidency is awarded based on votes in the Electoral College, which are apportioned according to popular vote within states. The magic number is 270; either candidate that attains that number of Electoral College votes will have achieved a majority and will win the presidency.

My prediction as of 19 September 2008:

Obama 284 McCain 254

The two changes from last week: Firstly, that I have moved Colorado from blue to red, based on recent polling. Colorado would be a big win for Obama, and this is the first time he’s lost his handle on it. It’s still very competitive. Likewise, based on recent polling (here and here), I am awarding Ohio to Obama. Ohio is still obscenely tight, and I’ll add this disclaimer: If I’m wrong about Ohio, and it’s still red, McCain wins 274-264.

Virginia remains unbearably close. Looking at polls coming out of Virginia in the last 7-10 days (likely voter polls only, we’re ignoring registered voter polls), we have two with Obama leading (50-46 and 48-46), one with McCain leading (50-44), and one with them even at 48-48. I’m thinking, or hoping, that Obama is starting to regain some ground in Virginia, but in an abundance of caution, I’m leaving it in McCain’s column.

Likewise, I am leaving New Hampshire in Obama’s column, because even though a recent Zogby Internet poll has McCain up, I don’t really trust internet polling, and the results just don’t feel right.

I’m less pessimistic than I was last week. Daily tracking polls over the past few days are definitely showing an Obama shift. National polls are useless, basically, for anything other than establishing trends and public response to goings-on. But these trends have trickled down to state polling, where Obama is starting to make up ground. I think that McCain’s RNC/Palin bump is over, and the terrible news concerning the U.S. economy this week is helping Obama. I predict Obama making up more ground in state polling over the next week, and that next week’s map will remain blue.

Battleground States

These are the states which are seriously in play and could go either way. I’ve awarded them above based on trend data and gut feeling.

CO FL MN NH OH VA

Florida and Ohio may be trending back into Obama territory. CNN polling dated 9/15 shows Obama leading both, by margins of 4 and 2 points respectively, but CNN polls tend to lean Democratic by a point or two, so I’m hesitant to move either back into Obama’s column just yet.

Minnesota is still in Obama territory. A Minneapolis Star Tribune poll earlier in the week put the race dead even at 45-45, but a SUSA poll from the same time period doesn’t have it so close, so I’m still giving it to Obama. That said, Minnesota is closer than it’s been all cycle.

Michigan is still close, but not as close as some people think. Most reputable polls over the last 7-10 days have Obama with a lead of at least 4-6 points. I’m moving it to “Competitive for McCain”.

Nevada looks like it’s slipping more and more into McCain’s column, and accordingly I’ve moved it from “Battleground” to “Competitive for Obama”.

Competitive States

Generally speaking, I’ve limited this to states in which the two candidates poll six or less points apart in Pollster.com’s trend estimates.

Obama is competitive in: IN MO MT NV WV

It’s increasingly clear that the Obama campaign should have deployed more resources to West Virginia, which has become pretty competitive despite little attention from Obama.

Gone from this list are Arizona and North Dakota. ARG has McCain with a 17 point lead in Arizona. ARG is kind-of like the store brand of polls — you know it’s not quite right, but it’s good enough, usually. I suspect the real number in Arizona is more like McCain +10. McCain seems to be really opening up in North Dakota, which until late July/early August was very competitive.

McCain is competitive in: MI NM WA

I’ve added Washington here, which is ridiculous, but somehow McCain’s tightened it up. Recent Rasmussen and SUSA polls have McCain within 4 points.

A lot of folks think New Mexico is tighter than I do. I just don’t think McCain has made enough of an inroad to call it battleground, yet.

The Florida Supreme Court today overturned its previous ruling in the Strand v. Escambia County case, which deals with government use of taxpayer dollars to guarantee bonds. The case, brought by Escambia County resident Greg Strand, regarded a public roads project, but the decision affected all kinds of stuff, including Pensacola’s Community Maritime Park.

The court’s prior decision mandated that local governments would have to seek voter approval before using taxpayer dollars to guarantee bond issues. This freaked people out locally because the bonds for the Community Maritime Park were guaranteed with Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) money, a portion of which comes from County taxpayers, who did not get to vote on the park.

Now, the court has done the right thing, and reversed itself, and allowed local government to operate as it has for years. Hooray!

Links

• PNJ: “Strand case overturned”
• Text of decision

Ahead of tomorrow’s weekly presidential race prediction, I wanted to highlight a recent poll out of Virginia. The poll was commissioned by Public Policy Polling (PPP), which is a Democratic-affiliated polling operation, and the poll only has Obama up by 2, within the margin of error, so take this all with a grain of salt.

Their sample was a good one, in my opinion. They used a large sample of 1090 likely voters. Some may call the 55-45 female-male split skewed toward women, but that’s what the split is going to look like on election day. In my opinion, the other demographic splits, including party ID, race, and age, are pretty representative of the VA electorate.

I want to highlight a few questions:

The candidates for President are Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama. If the election was today, who would you vote for? If John McCain, press 1. If Barack Obama, press 2. If you’re undecided, press 3.

• McCain: 46%
• Obama: 48%
• Undecided: 5%

Are you firmly committed to your choice for President, or could you change your mind between now and the election? If you are firmly committed, press 1. If you could change your mind, press 2.

• Firmly committed: 93%
• Could change mind: 7%

I’m really surprised at these results. If only 7% of the VA electorate says they could change their mind, and 5% of that 7% are the undecideds, then only 2% of candidate-committed Virginians are open to changing their vote. I can’t believe it’s really that hard-line, that firm, but it’ll be interesting to see if this is reflecting in other polling.

The other questions I wanted to highlight deal with the candidates’ VP choices:

Did Barack Obama’s selection of Joe Biden as his running mate make you more or less likely to vote for him? If it makes you more likely to vote for him, press 1. If it makes you less likely to vote for him, press 2. If it makes no difference, press 3.

• More likely: 38%
• Less likely: 27%
• No difference: 35%

Did John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate make you more or less likely to vote for him? If it makes you more likely to vote for him, press 1. If it makes you less likely to vote for him, press 2. If it makes no difference, press 3.

• More likely: 42%
• Less likely: 40%
• No difference: 18%

According to these results, Palin is not playing very well in Virginia. She got a negative reaction from significantly more voters than Biden, with 13% more voters reacting negatively. The negative reaction to Palin almost matches the positive. What’s more, while Palin got a marginally better (+4%) positive reaction than Biden, if you add each VP nominee’s “more likely” and “no difference” numbers, that means 73% of voters are just as likely to voter for Obama post-Biden, compared to 60% who just as likely to vote McCain.

Links

• Complete poll