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Good times, good times!
I have many favorite Matt Cunningham pieces — because God knows the man works hard for his money by putting pretty dresses on skunks, and I love watching his creative acrobatics — but what may be my absolute favorite one of all time has been on my phone’s browser tabs for a year now, because it not only was a good way for me to go to check out his site but was also guaranteed to make my smile, and sometimes laugh out loud. Yesterday marked the first anniversary of its publication. It was his explanation of how the talk about Disney being in political trouble was just hype, and it can’t possible be true. It was called “The Myth of the Anti Disney, Anti-Resort Backlash” — and it was dedicated to reassuring his flock that they needn’t worry, because despite appearances Anaheim voters not only hadn’t woken up, but wouldn’t wake up anytime soon. Here’s the introduction:
Media narratives can be powerful things, which is why politicians and interests seeking to influence public debate try to craft clever narratives. It’s why the winners of elections always try to claim a “mandate,” whether they won by a landslide or squeaked out an electoral college win while losing the popular vote by millions.
In Anaheim, it’s why the progressives who fought for the Tait-Moreno Council majority like to spin the narrative of “The People’s Council” – the contention that the results of the 2016 elections revealed a voter revolt against Disney and the Resort and claimed mandate to advance the interests of the residents over tourist-serving businesses. It’s a claim that’s been advanced repeatedly for months in news articles by members of the current council majority.
It captures the imagination of progressive activists and their media sympathizers, but did it actually happen? A sober examination of the facts shows no evidence of such a mandate; if anything, the Tait-Moreno majority was a narrow fluke on the scale of Trump’s electoral college win.
Do you know WHO ELSE has come, over the last year, to believe the narrative about how voters had come to resent Disney?
Disney, that’s who!
Disney has been on its best behavior lately, trying to give voters no reason to pass Resort Corporate Welfare Recipient Minimum Wage initiative Measure L — to the point of basically giving in to Measure L’s terms — either hoping to get its old Council majority back out of a real change of heart to reject crony capitalism and embrace reform. (Voters don’t yet know which it is, which is why they have to remain vigilant in the upcoming and support candidates who will not show up in December throwing bundles of cash Disney’s way along with the city’s apologies for making them sad.) I hope that they favor reform, which they can demonstrate by not trying to usher in candidates like Mitch Caldwell and Trevor O’Neil who will support pro-Disney cronyism to such a wildly extravagant extent that even Steve Faessel might slowly back away from them.)
It should be obvious that Disney would not be doing this if their own research did not show that it would do better by improving its reputation — both within its founding park’s home city and with the larger public paying increasing attention to it — by being a good citizen of Anaheim in more than a chucking-a-few-shillings-into-paupers’-hats way and actually taking a stake in the prosperity of its increasingly minority citizenry for years to come. I and other have called for this, and predicted it, in these pages for years now — both when quoting Mayor Tom Tait and Dr. Jose Moreno and OCCORD and UNITE-HERE and based on our own analyses — and little could be more welcome than seeing it coming into focus. Everyone (well, not Kris Murray and Lucille Kring, but almost everyone) loves Donald and Daisy Duck more than they do Uncle Scrooge.
The public caught on! Disney adapted! Despite Cunningham’s best efforts, decency and rationality won out.
Now it’s absolutely true that despite this, reformers could lose this next election — and backsliding could occur. Consider how:
- Cunningham’s commenters are PLEADING with Disney to give lots of money to by now pretty-creepy Walt-impersonator Caldwell so that he can fend off what they see as the pro-Moreno hordes. Their voices could still be heard. The Anaheim Chamber of Commerce ain’t entirely dead yet, except spiritually.
- Mayor Tait has not anointed a successor among his candidates — Cynthia Ward and Ashleigh Aitken have the most obvious claims, in terms of policy affinity and campaign money, and Tait still doesn’t seem to dislike Lorri Galloway as many of the rest of us — which means that its possible that Harry Sidhu could squeak into the Mayor’s Chair with little more than a quarter of the vote. (There’s ANOTHER good reason why voters have to elect a good Council!)
- In District 2, new emigrant Jordan Brandman has recanted some of his former positions, although I couldn’t tell you the details except that he’ll not support Kris Murray for Supervisor so long as a Democrat runs (and one will), and benefits from some vote splitting among his opponents, whose hearts may be with Duane Roberts but whose brains are with James James Vanderbilt.
- In District 3, Caldwell is able to be all statesmanlike while his cronies eviscerate Dr. Moreno.
- In District 6, O’Dious O’Neil faces Tait candidate (can one still say “slate?”) Patty Gaby on the Republican side, but also less odious but still historically Disney-prone Grant Henninger on the Democratic side. Who splits the votes how is unclear.
However, even if the reformist candidates lose because of the big money spent against them and the vote-splitting among them, it still wouldn’t mean that Cunningham was correct! They will have won despite the Anti-Resort sentiment, which has led both Disney and its supporters to at least pretend to to have reformed. And if the signs of Disney’s reputation inching back upwards are true, it may be able to do the hardest thing a corporation can do: tell supporters wanting to throw money at it “thanks, but no thanks.”
Just to be safe, though, we remind voters of one eternal truth as the election approaches:
PLEASE — DON’T LET YOUR GUARD DOWN NOW!!!
This is your Post-Weekend Open Thread. Talk about that or whatever else you’d like until we come up with another Open Thread.
Matt’s commenters, especially the one(s) begging Disney for more Mitch support, are even fewer than they appear, as one recently accidentally admitted to posting under different names. I don’t imagine they (or he or she) carry any weight with Disney or SOAR.
What makes you think Tom doesn’t dislike Lorri?
Jordan agreed to a list of positions, which were listed on this blog, but even if you believed him, there’s no underlying belief system governing his decisions. Or not one we’d find palatable. And he still won’t answer any of my serious questions. So no, I have to assume he’s still the same old Jordan.
On the plus side, I’ve been told that Mickey Mouse himself is going to sing a new version of “Let it Go” tonight, expressing his change of heart.
Hahaha — nice.
As for Tom and Lorri: they’re former colleagues and former allies and he may well attribute her betrayal of him (when she reportedly sought out a Pringle scholarship in a time of need) to weakness rather than evilness. (If there’s a group to which he’s not disposed, it’s wealthy crony plutocrats like Sidhu.)
Yeah, I know that it’s not a very compelling argument, but I don’t have a better reason as to why he’s refusing to issue even a dual endorsement for Mayor, with Democrats supporting Ashleigh, Republicans supporting Cynthia, and independents supporting whichever one they like more.
1. I don’t think he or anybody is really worried about Lorri winning.
2. Everyone knows he likes Cynthia best. But he’s not convinced she can win (self-fulfilling worry there) and he doesn’t want to do anything that could accidentally help Harry win. I don’t think he should worry so much and should just do the right thing.
The Mayor has a lot of Hamlet in him.
That logic doesn’t make sense, for reasons that I will not now explain, even though it’s probably bleeding obvious. I’m not saying that you’re wrong, I’m saying that the logic is so wrong I can’t see Tait really believing it.
Sidhu couldn’t even get the Republican Party endorsement — that’s how pathetic he is. The only chance he has to win is IF TAIT DOES NOT ACTIVELY OPPOSE HIM — either by endorsing Cynthia, Ashleigh, both of them, or both of them plus Lorri! And THAT is exactly what he’s doing!
He’s not acting like Hamlet. Hamlet held a sword and ultimately stabbed his enemies. He’s acting like Polonius, thinking that he can just be an onlooker. That doesn’t end well.
Hamlet waited way too long, and everybody ended up dying.
The common reading is that Hamlet couldn’t make up his mind. That’s not really true and definitely not fair. He just wanted better proof than he had before he committed parricide and regicide, but by the time that he witnessed Claudius’s reaction to the play (that one that caught “the conscience of the king”), he knew what he had to do. He *tried* — but was thwarted by circumstances.
Oh, how he tried! First, he thought that Claudius was hiding behind the arras while he was visiting Ophelia, and stabbed the rat — but it was Polonius’s body that tumbled out. Later, while strolling about loaded for bear, he correctly reasoned (within the religiosity of the play) that if he killed Claudius in the midst of what looked like the usurper’s contrite and repentant prayer to God (which it actually wasn’t, as the Bard twists the knife in our gut another time!) Claudius would go to Heaven while Ophelia was supposedly consigned to hell as a supposed suicide. That was not where he thought Claudius should go, so he really did have to stay his hand and wait until Claudius was no longer in a state of grace. He got there pretty much as soon as he could, with God messing around with him until the final scene.
Yes, (almost) everybody ended up dying, but that was apparently OK with God, who perhaps wanted to reward Norway’s Fortinbras for his highly successful ravaging of Poland. Denmark was a much more convenient commute for conqueror, so maybe it was an environmental decision. The Lord’s ways are mysterious, as were the Bard’s.
Anyway, the critics are wrong: Hamlet is a tragedy of circumstance, not of character. Tait may be in part a victim of circumstance here, and he has fine character, but unless there’s a consideration larger than his legacy that I haven’t identified here, then like the specious reading of Hamlet he really *can’t* make up his mind. I fear that the final act might be tragic.
Do you remember William H. Macy’s character in the original movie of Fargo, especially when he faced capture?
Not asking for any particular reason….
Yikes!
Got a video of the scene where Frances McDormand has him collared?
Just got polled on the CA-39 race. They’re interested in Trump, abortion, and the gas tax. My interview took a loooooong time. (To be fair, that wasn’t the interviewer’s fault.)
Hey ANAHEIMERS!
Another Mayoral Candidates Forum TONIGHT (Wednesday) at 7, Katella High School, organized by the League of Women Voters, the reigning GODDESSES OF FAIR AND BALANCED DEBATES. (And you can tell Fred Whitaker I said that.)
I went to the last one. Cynthia Ward was the only one who knew up from down. Ashleigh Aitken is all polish and nothing substantive beneath the glitter. Fake veteran Harry Sidhu was assclown on steroids, trying desperately to prove he’s worthy of the cop union endorsement (he is).
Oh, yeah. And Galloway is still hearing voices and believes that her candidacy is happening “for a reason.”
Damn, I oscillate between dying to write my LoGal masterpiece and thinking there’s better things to do.
Did I ever talk about how she really thought GOD wanted her to beat Tom and Lucille to be Mayor in 2014 – Anaheim’s “FIRST WOMAN-OF-COLOR MAYOR!” – to the degree she embraced the mentally damaged Pastor Stieler as a divine gift?
And how on election night, when she was behind even Lucille (she barely passed her later with late ballots) she locked herself in her office and SCREAMED AT GOD for half an hour, “HOW COULD YOU LET THAT BITCH BEAT ME?”
And then how she decided in order to save her non-profit she’d have to mend fences with the guy she used to talk about as the Devil Incarnate, Curt Pringle?
And how Pringle’s one demand was for her to fire her tireless aide and by-far better half Joanne Sosa?
And how she then went and fired Joanne unceremoniously for no cause (besides Pringle’s desire?)
And how, when she decided to run again this year, she rang up Joanne all friendly like nothing had ever happened?
I’ll have to write about all that and more some day.
Go for it.
You did write about the Pastor Stieler thing here somewhere.
You wrote about the Pringle entente, but not in even this much detail.
I’ve been wanting you to write about what she did to Joanna Sosa for a long time, because all I know about it I know through you — and it’s a horrible story that really ought to be told.
I did not know that she had called up Joanne this year. What a creep!
No, Pastor Stieler was a Dan Chmielewski masterpiece — he eventually noticed how embarrassing it was and deleted it, I sure wish I had it all on screenshot, with all 200 great comments. It was hilarious! Especially the comments from the pastor.
I gotta wait until Joanne actually wants me to.