My daughter got home from work a short time ago. She brought in the mail and gave it to my wife, who gave me an unusual looking package from an address in Anaheim, near Little Arabia.
I opened it. It was filled with 40 postcards, filled out with the names of voters or, if not registered voters, then surely people in need. The postcards were mostly addressed to me, but some were also addressed to Bob Huff — a not uncommon sort of mistake in following instructions.
This was their message to me as a candidate for office:
Support Homes and Jobs for Californians
Our families face a rental housing crisis. Will you invest in affordable housing solutions that create jobs?
We are California’s hardworking families, homeless individuals, seniors on fixed incomes, people with disabilities, foster youth and veterans. As your constituents, we ned your leadership for affordable homes and good jobs now.
[X] I support affordable homes and I commit to vote November 6th.
Well, I know that some out there call people like me “boohoos,” but I stopped short of tearing up. (My wife, when she read them, did get goosebumps, though.) I was touched, and so I went to their Facebook page, gave them a like — which you can do too; the name is in the picture just below — and then wrote a response.
Greg Diamond posted to California Homes and Jobs Act
30 minutes ago near Brea
Dear California Homes and Jobs Act members,
I just received 40 postcards from you, combined in a mailing envelope, addressed to me and in some cases also to Bob Huff, my opponent in the upcoming election to the 29th State Senate District. I want to let you know that they arrived safety. I was moved by them; I hope that my opponent Sen. Huff feels the same way.
If elected, I will do what I can to honor your righteous request for greater focus on affordable rental housing. (I’ll try to do so even if I am not elected, but of course then I wouldn’t be able to do as much.) I am hoping that you will do your part to help me, and others similarly disposed, to do so.
Meeting the needs you express will be much easier if our state votes YES ON PROP 30 and NO ON PROP 32. PROP 30 will give us some critical room to maneuver within our state budget. PROP 32 will prevent a virtual takeover of our political process by the sorts of people who oppose the needs you express.
The Presidential election is very important. The election of members of Congress like Jay Chen, Loretta Sanchez, and Alan Lowenthal is important. The election of state legislators like Sharon Quirk-Silva and myself is important. But the most important votes that you can cast in California, to get what you ask for in these cards, are YES ON PROP 30 and NO ON PROP 32.
Voters need to go all the way down to the propositions this year and vote the right way to protect our state. I’m telling people to do that as much as I can. But there are many of you there and just one of me. I ask for your help in spreading the word, YES ON 30 and NO ON 32, over this final week — and thus in helping those voters help sympathetic political representatives to help you.
I thank you for caring enough to do this project and to those at the California Homes and Jobs Project for helping to arrange it. If I am fortunate enough to be elected next week, I look forward to hearing from you often. Meanwhile, I wish you the best.
Greg Diamond
Candidate for State Senate
Some people have wondered aloud (loudly aloud) why I ran for State Senate when — I suppose it’s time to admit it — I knew from the start that as a fledgling solo practitioner there was only a slim chance that I’d have the time to devote the tremendous amount of effort to it that I see Jay Chen, Sharon Quirk-Silva, Alan Lowenthal, and others put into their campaigns. (Essentially, I would have had been able to raise as much money as they have, pawn off my existing cases, and possibly pay myself a salary. I couldn’t do the first, didn’t want to do the second, and I didn’t feel right about doing the third unless I could match my opponent in funding.)
Well, if being a candidate for state legislature doesn’t necessarily impress those “in the know,” it still impresses a lot of those who aren’t in the know. (That statement will surely strike some uncharitable types who read this as egotistical, but for the most part I find it embarrassing when I’m treated like anything special just because I won an uncontested primary.) Is it good for business? I don’t know — maybe, so long as no one publishes a fanciful drawing of me blogging naked or something, but that’s not the point.
What I like about being a candidate for state legislature is that it makes me, in the eyes of those who don’t “know better,” a kind of representative of the political system overall. And that identification gives me the power to do one thing with greater force than I otherwise might:
I can treat those who write me, seeking my help, with respect and generosity and dignity.
That, and not the opportunity to meet President Clinton or shake hands with powerful civic leaders, is what I do find satisfying. In a world of people who are trying to suppress and to ignore, can be kinder than that — and maybe, somehow, that will do some good. And that is why one of the nicest moments I have had as a candidate this year was receiving that package of postcards — and having the opportunity to give those who wrote them the thanks, for participating in the political process, that they deserve — and maybe thus to encourage them to do so again.
As much as anything else, that is what has motivated me to run for office — and why no matter what happens at the polls I feel that on Tuesday night I will be able to lay claim to a victory.
This is off topic, but it’s a point of pride so I’ll post it here.
I hear sometimes from people, processing it with incredulity, about how much better the Orange Juice Blog was in the old days. (I think of those as the “extra pulp” days, while now we’re “low pulp,” and I think we’re all fine if we never become entirely pulp-free.)
I could not read the OJB for what seemed like years when its sidebars had links to enemies of the publisher that detailed their financial and legal problems. I still get hard stares from some people, when I tell them where I write, who don’t quite get the extent to which it has changed under new management.
But if the original editor knew how to do anything, it was how to goose statistics like page views — and let’s face it, lurid scandal sells. So I have looked wistfully on occasion at the statistics for the 2010 election cycle prior to Art Pedroza’s selling off the site to Vern for the price of a low-quality beer just before he entered bankruptcy. As interest in the election built, monthly page views fluctuated and then rose — 100K, 88K, 105K, 71K, 88K, 88K again, and then 133K in the month before the election and 111K in November. At that point Pedroza sold the blog and views dropped to between 55K and 70K a month for a almost year and a half.
We finally broke 70K in April, with the help of the Willis Method of using craigslist, but that ultimately came to seem too silly. We broke it legitimately in July, when Anaheim broke into the news. And this month we broke 91K views — only four months that we can find from the Pedroza regime were any better than that.
I’m proud of that — proud of our writers; our substantially improved commenters; our Publisher, who makes it look much easier than it is; and our readers, who seem to appreciate the effort we put in and the result we put out. Happy November to all!
Greg, you’re a joke.
You are the embodiment of everything wrong with the occupy movement. Like the majority of the protestors, you rightfully realize there’s a problem and things need to change, but you’re very confused about who to blame. If George W. Bush was president, you know damn well who you’d be blaming, but since your guy is in office, you keep your mouth shut and turn to wallstreet which is ridiculous.
Obama is one of the most violent, oppressive presidents in US history. Countless new resource wars started around the world, assassination of US citizens, and of course the signing of the NDAA. Of course morons like yourself say “Oh well he said he isn’t going to actually use the indefinite detention part so it’s okay”.
You’re a fucking idiot Greg, and there’s no other way to put it. You may not be aware of this but the president of the United States has the power to veto ANY bill. He could have easily struck it down and had it rewritten so that American citizens wouldn’t lose their right to a fair trial- In fact he said he would have it repealed by a certain date. Of course that date is long passed and we’ll hear no mention of it from either party.
You’re a completely toolbag Greg. I can’t believe there are people like you attempting to work in politics that have such a weak grasp on US and world history. You’re blind to what’s happening around you, but I’d like to ask you to wake up. Stop being a part of this two party facade of a system and help restore this country to its former glory.
Stop being a media controlled clown Greg.
I’m going to try to get past my hurt feelings as I write this:
Yes, I’ve heard of this “veto” procedure you describe. I’m also aware that out there in Washington D.C. there is this amorphous thing called “the real world of political consequences,” in which Obama’s veto of a huge defense appropriations bill (of which the NDAA provisions — I’ll mention that that’s what you’re talking about, since you didn’t — were a minuscule part) would be the only damn thing you would be hearing about right now as we slid inexorably towards ratifying a hellish Romney presidency in less than a week. Understanding this requires more than knowledge that there is this thing called a veto, of which I may or may not be aware, but that there are significant political consequences for vetoing what is popularly termed as (no matter what lame-duck dry-drunk George W. Bush once did) a “must-pass” bill.
Obama signed the NDAA, after expressing his objections about those sections in question and pledging never to use the power that they suggested, because (1) they were inert restatements of already existing law, (2) to the extent they could be argued to be anything but that, they would clearly be found to be unconstitutional — as they have, and (3) it was not worth giving over the Presidency to a soulless vampire like Romney to make a pointless point.
Thank you for your profane condescension, though; it helps to keep me humble.
California Homes and Jobs Act Just another tax increase.
Why not pass a bill that all the dollars in the PERS and Teachers pension be required to be used only on California mortgages and city and local bonds measures?
Bring California’s money back home.
You’re so clueless Greg. Your ignorance makes me sick.
“they would clearly be found to be unconstitutional ”
That’s interesting, because here’s an article from the NYtimes where the Obama administration was fighting to get the indefinite detention enforced after a district court judge filed an injunction on it due to it being unconstitutional.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/us/politics/us-warns-judges-ruling-impedes-its-detention-powers.html?pagewanted=all
I know you’re too brainwashed to see the truth or admit your god-king is at fault, but he’s playing you. You’re a low level pawn in this corrupt bipartisan game of control.
Now close your eyes, go back to watching MSNBC, slap another Obama sticker on your Prius, and grow another chin. People like you don’t change. You’re too far gone.
That’s right — the Administration (if it wants decent relations with Congress) has to make a good faith effort in court, even with what they know is a doomed case.
I don’t have an Obama sticker on my Prius — but I do have a NO ON 32 sticker on my Taurus. Let me know if you’re unfamiliar with that one, fake Occupy person.
missed this one earlier. seth is a moron, not necessarily because of what he says but because of how he says it. i disagree with greg but try to do it in a somewhat humorous and respectful manner. seth, by demonizing the opposition simply makes it difficult to have a rational and constructive conversation. and i respect greg’s choice of automobiles, a taurus. our housekeeper has one and it allows her to get to work in a timely and safe manner.
on the substantive issue, affordable housing is, in reality, a win win proposition. we have, over the years, owned a lot of section eight properties and it both allows lower income families to live in decent housing while allowing greedy capitalistic pigs to get a decent return on their investment. and yeah, it is a government program which can be called crony capitalism or corporate welfare because the owners make money. but i would argue that if the owners make money and the proletariate have a place to live, we all win.