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Three icons of Santa Barbara's public safety clan endorsed Roy Lee over Das Williams in the First District Board of Supervisors race this week, saying the challenger is running to serve the community, not just his own ambition. The unexpected endorsements by former District Attorney Joyce Dudley, retired city Fire Chief Pat McElroy and ex-Police Chief and county Undersheriff Barney Melekian not only lend credibility to the long shot campaign of Lee, a Carpinteria City Council member, but also represent a rebuke to Williams, who is seeking a third term. At a time when Williams effectively controls the dominant local Democratic Party, and is backed by its most-closely allied organizations, the trio of Lee endorsements is significant because they send a loud message, which many political, business and non-profit leaders will only whisper. All three have worked with both officeholders over the years, and their praise for the lesser-known Lee - in words which stress his honesty, integrity and communitarianism -- offer an implicit contrast of their up close and personal experience with Das. "I kept thinking about all the people in our community who won’t say publicly what they say in private because they are afraid of consequences," McElroy told Newsmakers, referencing the incumbent supervisor's reputation for political payback. "Elected officials who know better in private, but fall in line in public." "Enough is enough," McElroy added. Why endorsements can matter. As a practical matter, political scientists, professional hacks and the cognoscenti engage in an eternal, and unresolved, debate about the impact of endorsements on voters, ranging from advocacy groups and media outlets to celebrities and politicians. As a political matter, these endorsements supply a small spark of excitement in what has been a low-energy, low-information campaign, while triggering a quick boost to Lee's fundraising effort, which has lagged badly. His campaign this week quickly churned out its first mailer, featuring Dudley, McElroy and Melekian. An entrenched incumbent, Williams predictably collected endorsements from groups that underpin Santa Barbara's liberal Democratic establishment: the party's county committee along with constant local allies, including the Sierra Club and Planned Parenthood. Endorsements from these organizations carry solid benefits for Williams, including volunteers and money. Perhaps most importantly, the seals of approval function as signifiers, or information shortcuts, for voters who may not follow politics closely but feel aligned with the groups' missions and values. For the insurgent Lee, the imprimaturs of three people who have been influential in local emergency services and law enforcement circles validate the seriousness of his candidacy, and, he hopes, encourage voters who've never heard of him to check him out. How insiders view Roy and Das. Melekian, the city's former interim Police Chief, previously worked in county government, both as Undersheriff, and as Assistant County Executive Officer for Public Safety. Among other duties in the latter posts, he oversaw enforcement for, Williams' idée fixe cannabis project. It's telling that in his formal endorsement of Lee, who has been harshly critical of his rival's unwavering pro-pot industry stance, Melekian stressed the challenger's law enforcement bona fides: "Roy Lee's understanding of the complexities of law enforcement and his unwavering support for public safety initiatives make him the ideal candidate for Supervisor," he said in a prepared statement. "His vision for a safer community aligns with the needs of our law enforcement officers and the people they serve." In a brief phone interview on her way to catch a flight, Dudley contrasted Lee's approach in elected office to that of Williams, with whom she clashed over a variety of issues, not least his push for lefty public safety policies she felt made the community less safe, "Roy's attitude and actions are those of a true public servant," she told us. "My experience with Das was that it often was always about him." McElroy echoed Dudley's sentiment. "To his great credit Roy accepted the difficult challenge of going up against an entrenched incumbent," McElroy said. "He already has a business to run, a council member’s seat and a family. It couldn’t have been easy, but he answered the call. "Roy is not a man who is going to make a career out of his ambition," he added. What will Indy do? One of the few political endorsements that definitely, and consistently, makes a difference in local races is that of the Santa Barbara Independent, which interviews candidates and then offers their election choices as a voting guide for thousands of readers. There's little doubt that the paper will enthusiastically back incumbent Supervisor Joan Hartmann in the three-way Third District race, but what they do with the Das-Roy First District contest is the matter of considerable speculation among insiders and other hacks. Four years ago, the Indy endorsed Das, albeit in a rather backhanded fashion, enraging backers of then-challenger Laura Capps, who still believe it made the difference in that narrowly-decided election. Despite the plaintive hope expressed in that 2020 endorsement that Williams would wake up and change his ways --"But we also believe Williams will learn to admit his mistakes quickly and with compassion, and that he will strive to repair relationships with those who have been his past allies," they wrote then (sheesh -ed.) - longtime Das-watchers have waited in vain for him to mature, let alone transmogrify. Inquiring minds want to know: Will they fall for the Das schmegegge again? The Montecito Journal, the second weekly based in Williams' district, meanwhile has been a clear-eyed, consistent critic of his political preening and two-faced MO on important local issues, most especially cannabis, housing and flood control. "Williams is the consummate career politician, and we are a stone on which he is stepping," editor Gwyn Lurie wrote in a fierce takedown of the incumbent last week, which served effectively as an endorsement of Lee. "There's nothing wrong with ambition," she added. "Politicians need ambition to succeed and, at its best, it's on behalf of constituents. But in this case, it's clear to those paying attention that Williams' ambition represents more of a commitment to self-service than to public service. He doesn't love Montecito. I'm not even sure he likes it." Ouch. Read the whole thing here. P.S. Williams refuses to answer questions from Newsmakers, saying that doing so is "not in service of the public good." You could look it up. Fun with numbers. One of the few mysteries on the local side of the March 5 statewide primary election is whether Supervisor Hartmann will win the 50 percent plus 1 vote she needs to avoid being forced into a November runoff with the second place finisher. Hartmann's re-election race is complicated by the facts that: a) she has two opponents - Republican businessman Frank Troise, and Lompoc Mayor Jenelle Osborne, who is running as a No Party Preference independent; b) the district has been redrawn, cutting out Isla Vista's trove of lefty-liberal younger voters and adding the more conservative city of Lompoc; c) turnout is uncertain, given that the presidential nominating races are expected to be all but over, with Joe Biden and Donald Trump certain to dominate across the state. Voter data from the Secretary of State shows that registration in the new district is: Democrats 43 percent Republicans 28 percent No Party Preference 20 percent Third parties, unknowns 9 percent It is unclear if actual turnout will match registration, or if Trump Republicans, who vote in larger numbers whenever he is on the ballot, will give a GOP tilt to the election, particularly because Democrats overall are meh about Biden's re-election. According to sources close to our imagination, a back of the envelope, March 5 worst case for Hartmann would go something like: 50 percent overall turnout = 25,500 votes (approx) Total needed to avoid run-off = 12,750 votes 40 percent Democrats (est) 10,200 31 percent Republicans (est) 7,905 29 NPP, third party, unknowns (set) 7,395 WAG assumptions: Say Joan holds serve on Democrats, and Frank does so among Republicans. Joan then would need to win an additional 2,550 votes, or about one-third of the remaining portion, to win outright on March 5. Swami sez: Given that she's the only one who appears to be, you know, running an actual campaign, it's eminently doable. BTW, If you missed our recent conversation with Joan Hartmann, co-moderated by Josh Molina and the Newsmakers' genial host, you can watch it via YouTube below, or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here JR Images (L-R) Pat McElroy, Roy Lee, Barney Melekian (Lee campaign brochure); Cowardly lion Das won't answer our questions (Newsmakers photo illustration); Joyce Dudley (courtesy).

The greatest braggarts are usually the biggest cowards. - Jean-Jacques Rousseau At 7:58 p.m. on Thursday, Supervisor Das Williams sent a peculiar email, cancelling a long-scheduled appearance on Newsmakers TV -- the second time this year the re-election candidate cut and ran from an interview at the last minute. We've been trying since 2024 began to get Williams to sit down and answer questions on camera about his record on the Board of Supervisors, as part of an ongoing series of conversations with candidates in key March 5 election races, in partnership with our colleague Josh Molina and his "Santa Barbara Talks" podcast. Williams, who's seeking a third term as SB's First District Supervisor, first agreed that he'd come on the show on Jan. 26. Two days before, however, his campaign manager called it off saying Das had "a family matter come up," while agreeing to a makeup date of Feb. 9. Then last night came word, from no less a figure than the Great Man himself: not only was he standing us up again, but he'd decided not to come on at all. Because...something: I have a lot of respect for what you did at the News-Press. However, you do not appear to be able to be objective when it comes to my work in office, and you have made it clear to your audience that you disdain everything about me. I can’t pretend that this show engages in balanced journalism - which I deeply believe in, and think that deep down, you do too. I will be doing an energy efficient water heater inspection and trying to help someone who is losing their home find a new place to live during our scheduled time tomorrow, but I do not pretend it is merely a scheduling snafu. I don’t believe that appearing on the program is in service of the public good. I apologize for any inconvenience. Um, okay. Energy efficient water heater inspection, indeed. What is Das afraid of? Look, we stipulate that Newsmakers has been tough on Williams, not least for his epically disastrous county cannabis ordinance. It is the most brazenly, pro-industry such local law in California, which he cooked up in secret with a few lobbyist pals and credulous colleague Steve Lavignino, blindsiding local residents and dropping it like a noxious stink bomb on the good citizens of Carpinteria. It is also true, however, that an "objective" view of that policy debacle, along with other of his political misadventures, aligns more closely with our media watchdog perspective, than with the scornful, sneering, and triumphalist take peddled by the candidate and his posse of sycophants. (Secret teleological memo to Das: in looking for an "objective" view of yourself, it's generally best not to bank on your own view of, you know, yourself). Consider: A career politician and policy shape shifter who's been feeding at the public trough since 2003, Williams has not been subject to sustained, day-in-day-out coverage of his actions in office since 2006, when the morning paper melted down and began its long, slow slide to bankruptcy. Now, during a "campaign" without a single face-to-face forum with his challenger, Carp City Council member Roy Lee, Das blanches at the prospect of answering a few tough questions from truth-to-power journalists who've had the temerity to criticize him. Williams evidently is intimidated by the mere notion of speaking with a couple of interlocutors disinclined to accept at face value his glib political spin and overweening self-regard -- unlike fellow local libs who've taken a few shots from the Newsmakers TV gang, but still graciously accepted invites to come on the show (viz. Salud Carbajal, Monique Limon, Gregg Hart, Laura Capps, Joan Hartmann, Eric Friedman, Meagan Harmon, Kristen Sneddon, and Oscar Gutierrez, to name a few) - let alone national stature lefties like Gov. Gavin Newsom, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Senator Bernie Sanders, all of whom have cheerfully and effectively braved hostile questioning on the ignoble Fox News Channel. As Williams seeks yet another term beyond more than two decades in office, he seems to think the election should be more coronation than campaign. "His basement strategy is not working out," said one veteran local pol, granted anonymity because of Das' well-earned reputation for retribution, referring to Joe Biden's Covid campaign of 2020. "He still should (win big), but he just can't believe everyone doesn't bask in his wonderfulness." Loyal readers and viewers may be sure that, despite this shameful retreat from accountability by a self-entitled local politician, Newsmakers will soldier on to publish analyses and commentaries on the issues about which we'd hoped to have a conversation with him -- starting today, asJosh and the genial host discuss the Great Das Williams Wimp Out. Plus: All the latest from the Third District race, and decoding a mystifying ballot measure confronting city voters. All this, and more, right here, right now on Newsmakers TV. Check out our political update via YouTube below or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here, TVSB, Channel 17, broadcasts the show every weeknight at 8 p.m. and on weekends at 9 a.m. KCSB, 91.9 FM, airs the program at 5:30 p.m. on Monday. JR

Vicki Riskin recalls a town meeting on Martha's Vineyard a few years ago, when a crew of middle-school kids convinced their elected elders to adopt a ban on single-use plastic bottles. "I thought, if these children can do work on climate change, what am I doing?" she remembers. For Riskin, the answer to that existential question became "Bluedot Living," a journalistic enterprise that publishes a print magazine; researches and promotes a marketplace of eco-friendly products;,and emails a growing raft of national and localized digital newsletters -- including one in Santa Barbara - that are dedicated to "solutions-focused climate stories," along with "good news, good food and good tips for living every more sustainably." In 2018, Vicki was a longtime Montecito resident and community hero, whose life was changed, suddenly and forever, in the debris flow disaster: her cousin, the prominent realtor Rebecca Riskin, was killed, and her home was destroyed, amid a neighborhood turned to ruin. Having since relocated to Martha's Vineyard, the prosperous island south of Cape Cod, she dropped by Newsmakers TV this week. for a conversation about the ways and means Bluedot is seeking to help people face up to, and handle in a practical way, the uncertain impacts and consequences of climate change in our day-to-day lives (eg: "Clarifying California's Weird Weather," "Sustainable Super Bowl Snacks," "Ethical, Planet-Friendly Valentine's Chocolates"). Renaissance woman and force of nature, Vicki has been, variously, a therapist, a television writer and producer, and president of the Writers Guild of America, West. A notable, global human rights activist. she also led the revival of Antioch University in Santa Barbara and wrote "Fay Wray and Robert Riskin: A Hollywood Memoir," a dual biography of her parents, the famed actress (who upstaged King Kong in the original movie) and screenwriter ("Lost Horizon," "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" and "It Happened One Night"). In her present incarnation, she peripatetically has overseen the launch of the "Bluedot Living" newsletter in eight cities besides SB, and is immersed in spinning off new publications (next up: "The Bluedot Kitchen"), while frequently finding time and reason to visit her former home. Most recently, she's negotiated a partnership with the Independent, for a local version of Bluedot's print magazine, which is scheduled to be distributed with the paper this summer, In our conversation, Vicki also talked about the behind-the-scenes role she quietly played in construction of the critical, new Randall Road Debris Basin, recalled a book tour interrupted by Covid, and recounted how Bluedot helped bring about important, pragmatic changes in the eco-system of her new hometown. Complete information about the Bluedot operations, and a link to subscribe to the Santa Barbara newsletter, among others, is on their website here. All this and more, right here, right now on Newsmakers TV. JR Check out our conversation with Vicki Riskin on YouTube below, or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here. TVSB, Channel 17, broadcasts the show every weeknight at 8 p.m. and at 9 a.m. on weekends. KCSB, 91.9 FM, airs the program at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, CARTOON OF THE WEEK Cartoon: David Sipress for The New Yorker. Must-read of the week. As a young man, Steve Garvey was a squeaky clean Dodgers star, then married to a glamorous local TV celebrity, who made no secret of his political ambitions. In the 1970s and 80s, smilin' Steve spoke openly about running as a Republican for the U.S. Senate, or maybe beyond, when his playing days were done. Complications ensued. Mr. All-American botched his idealized marriage, carrying on a series of messy simultaneous relationships with two other women, fathering along the way multiple children, while generating a tangle of shambolic break-ups, bitter paternity battles, and toxic public hostilities that accompanied his sudden second marriage, to yet another partner, and several more offspring. His serial knavish behavior, that of a narcissistic sexist scoundrel, was the kind of reckless personal conduct that up until about 10 minutes ago was considered scandalous enough to preclude any thoughts of a career in public life. Then Donald Trump demonstrated his otherworldly talent for shamelessness, and changed the rules of politics. Garvey, now 70, is finally running for U.S. Senate in California under the GOP label, an old man pursuing a young man's dream, at a time when personal rectitude no longer seems to matter much to the voters of a party that once put a premium on character. Amid his first, shaky appearances on the campaign trail, the (also shaky) L.A. Times this week published a brutal, comprehensive account of Garvey's past -- and his present, as well, in the form of interviews with several of his now-adult children, who portray him as a cold, calculating and distant figure all but absent from their lives, now rendering himself as Mr. Dad. In "Steve Garvey touts 'family values' in Senate bid. Some of his kids tell a different story," reporters Nathan Fenno and Adam Elmahrek not only produced a stark chronicle of the candidate's'personal history, but also offer a Rohrschach test to measure the values of voters in a political culture much coarsened and transformed over the past eight years. The extent to which Trump's brazen refusal to observe basic norms of personal decency is a singular superpower, and how much it's transferrable to other politicians of his ilk, are intriguing questions that Garvey's campaign will help clarify. Our best bet: The Times piece makes him more popular among the Republican electorate. The Garvey piece is here. JR Image: First wife Cyndy with Steve Garvey in happier days (U.S. Sun).

The annual Point-in-Time count of the unhoused rolled out before dawn on Wednesday, as more than 400 volunteers fanned out to tally the number of homeless people in Santa Barbara County. To put a face on the numbers, KEYT's Lily Dallow spent countless hours in advance of the census effort in recent weeks, introducing herself to homeless people, seeking, listening to, and writing their life stories, and she reprises her reporting on this week's edition of Newsmakers TV. Also this week, SB's City Council approved a $6 million loan to the Housing Authority to aid the $9.45 million purchase of the Quality Inn on upper De La Vina Street; Josh Molina returns to explain that local residents had little warning, and no input, on the plan to remodel the hotel's 34 units into 32 studios for low-income and formerly homeless tenants (that's 295,312.50 per unit for those keeping score at home, with little heard to date about taxpayer-financed maintenance, repair or other annual costs. But we digress) Our latest episode also features Montecito Journal Editor-in-Chief Gwyn Lurie, who checks in from MoJo's global headquarters to discuss her company's latest big initiative: The Giving List Women's Summit, to be held here in April, is planned to draw 150 philanthropic practitioners and thought leaders for a conference focused on boosting and expanding non-profits from around the world that work specifically on behalf of girls and women, and will coincide with publication of a special, book-length edition of MoJo's popular Giving List, featuring 50 non-profits that operate in that space. Plus: Gwyn reports a spate of break-ins in Montecito and Carp; Lily unveils her big plans for election night; Josh forecasts an early close for the March 5 primary (and the genial host blunders into repeating a fake rumor that Frank Troise has raised $350K for his challenge to Third District Supervisor Joan Hartmann - make that $350 (sic) without the other three zeroes. Apologies for the confusion). All this and more, right here, right now, on Newsmakers TV. JR Check out the latest edition on YouTube below, or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here. TVSB, Channel 17, airs the show every weeknight at 8 p.m. and at 9 a.m. on weekends. KCSB, 91.9 FM, broadcasts the program on Monday at 5:30 p.m. Dual citizenship diary. Just 284 days before the Nov. 5 presidential election, today's Real Clear Politics polling average shows Donald Trump leading Joe Biden nationally: Trump 47.3% Biden 43.0% RCP’s current survey of online betting markets tells a similar story, with each candidate’s percentage of winning now calculated as: Trump 44.7% Biden   33.2% For those with thoughts of fleeing a potential Trump 2.0 administration, we recommend Business Insider’s “Five Best Countries to Move to if Trump Gets Elected,” and casting a close eye on the lack of red tape involved in emigrating to (checks notes) Svalbard. Svalbard, as every schoolchild knows, is a tiny archipelago that is technically part of Norway which for reasons BI does not explain, is not subject to that nation’s immigration laws – all you have to do is buy whatever transit tickets get you there. The good news: not much congestion with only 2,642 other folks in residence. The bad news, it’s north of the Arctic Circle, with winter temps averaging between -12 and -16 degrees Fahrenheit, and no sunlight between October and mid-February. Still: consider the alternative. CARTOON OF THE WEEK Cartoon by Christopher Weyant for The New Yorker.

Hiding in plain sight, an extraordinary transformation of the space industry is emerging in Santa Barbara County - as private companies supplant the military in presiding over a rapidly multiplying number of launches, powered by reusable rockets that position mega-constellations of satellites in orbit. Janene Scully, Noozhawk's North County Editor, and the only local journalist covering the Vandenberg Space Force Base beat, returns to Newsmakers TV this week for a look at the vast technological, economic and environmental implications of the now near-weekly missions, which most of us take note of only when they rattle the windows or scare the dog. As Janene's reported, Elon Musk's SpaceX plans a combined 150 launches this year, from Vandenberg and a sister Florida site, as the company's Falcon rockets and Starlink satellites lower costs and increasingly dominate a market fueled by ever-growing demand for both commercial and military payloads. Ryan P. Cruz checks in to talk about his must-read cover story in this week's Indy, which details how state government's frenzied demand for construction of new housing, which increasingly overrides local control of land use planning, has fast-tracked 18 projects, totaling some 5,000 units, using the so-called "Builder's Remedy" in the county and city. And Josh Molina has the latest on that 642-unit, blockbuster apartment project planned for the Macy's site at La Cumbre Plaza, which not only will eradicate the city's once-sacrosanct 60-foot height limit, but also will add only a tiny percentage -- less than 10 percent -- of below-market units, construction of which is purportedly the most urgent purpose of the housing hysteria. Plus: the gang goes around the horn on the biggest political races in advance of the March and November elections, with lots of analysis and commentary on the Third District supervisor's race and the three city council seats up this year. All this and more, right here, right now, on Newsmakers TV. JR Check out our new episode via YouTube below, or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here. TVSB, Channel 17, broadcasts the show every weeknight at 8 p.m. and at 9 a.m. on weekends. KCSB, 91.9 FM, airs the program at 5:30 p.m. on Monday. Photo illustration of Elon Musk and Falcon rocket by Business Insider. CARTOON OF THE WEEK Cartoon by Jason Adam Katzenstein for The New Yorker.

To the surprise of no one, Donald Trump won the Republican Iowa Caucuses on Monday night, officially opening a presidential primary campaign expected to progress, swiftly and decisively, to a rerun of 2020’s general election race: Trump vs. Biden, The Sequel. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Hailey finished far behind, in second and third, a fatuous and unavailing political spectacle, since the pair of alleged Trump challengers both pursued the novel strategy of barely criticizing, let alone attacking, the prohibitive front-runner against whom they purportedly are running. Terrified of offending Trump’s voters, with the cult-like devotion they bestow upon their leader, DeSantis and Hailey in Iowa instead performed a kind of campaign ape dance, assailing each other while ignoring the ferocious 800-pound gorilla who dominates the primary landscape. The next act of political kabuki is the January 23 New Hampshire primary, as the campaign moves, apparently inexorably, towards a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump in the Nov. 5 general election. Here is a look at three key factors that shape that crucial and foreboding contest. The election nobody wants. It seems only an exogenous event – say, one too many cheeseburgers, or a geezer trip-and-fall, or a killer asteroid, maybe – can prevent the 2024 presidential election from manifesting as an ominous replay of 2020. It is hard to overstate the aversion most people feel about this scenario. Poll after poll after poll has shown what a recent, representative example reveals: Fewer than one-in-four (24 percent) of those surveyed in a November AP-NORC Center poll said Biden should seek re-election, while fewer than one-in-three (30 percent) said Trump should seek a return to the White House, results aligned with an NBC News poll taken six months before. So unhappy are Americans with the match-up that, when CNN polltakers offered this mano-a-mano choice in a survey last summer, 31 percent of those interviewed simply refused to express support for either candidate. Despite widespread misgivings, however, Monday’s authoritative RealClearPolitics polling average reportshowed Trump leading among Republican voters nationally with 61.4 percent, far ahead of Haley (12 percent) and DeSantis (10.7 percent); among Democrats, Biden similarly dominates, with 69.8 percent, over rivals (check notes) Marianne Williamson (7.9 percent) and a Minnesota congressman named Dean Phillips (3.2 percent), whose smiling face was believed last seen on a milk carton. So here we are. State of play. For much of American history, voters have treated presidential re-election bids as up-or-down votes on an incumbent’s first term, basing their decision in large part on the state of the economy – think President Jimmy Carter swept from office by Ronald Reagan in 1980 – or whether they thought things were moving in the right or wrong direction – viz. President Reagan’s landslide re-election in 1984. In this century, however, unpopular chief executives twice have won second terms by relying on negative campaigning to frame the race, not as a referendum on their own performance, but as a choice between their administration and the specter of a dangerous challenger; thus George W. Bush’s 2004 “swiftboating” victory over Democratic challenger John Kerry, and Barack Obama’s successful portrayal of GOP foe Mitt Romney as an avaricious plutocrat in 2012. Biden, who began 2024 as among the least popular incumbents in history, throughout his long career often has wielded a campaign mantra – “Don’t compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the Alternative” – on which he will have to rely heavily in framing 2024 as a contrast election, rather than a plebiscite on his handling of the presidency. A just-out ABC News poll reports that only 33 percent of adults approve of his performance in office, compared to 58 percent who disapprove -- worse than Trump’s lowest point as president (36 percent) and the worst rating for an incumbent since Bush in 2008 and the Great Recession. The good news for Biden is that voters credit him for being more honest than Trump – by 41-to-26 percent; the bad news is that pervasive concerns about the 81-year-old president’s age led voters to favor the 77-year-old Trump, in judging who “has the mental sharpness it takes to serve effectively as president” – by 47-to-28 percent. You could look it up. Worse for Biden, voters continue to pan his handling of the economy, disapproving by a 31-to-56 ratio, an apparent reflection of sustained high prices for groceries, gas, and other essentials; it’s worth noting that his numbers on the issue have improved slightly since a previous ABC poll in September, as macroeconomic data show inflation still declining from its high in 2022, and all other economic indicators strong. Add it up, and Trump holds a tiny lead over the president in national popular polls: 45.8-to-44.7 as of today, according to the RealClear average, despite voters’ negative opinion of the Republican and rejection of him four years ago. For Democrats, that’s worse than it looks on the surface. As every school child knows, the Democratic candidate has won the popular vote in five of the six elections in this century -- but only captured the White House three times -- because of the Republican’s structural advantage in the Electoral College; Democrats typically need to prevail by three or four percent in the popular vote to secure an Electoral College victory. Bottom line: the U.S. is headed for another white-knuckle election, with the outcome decided by a few hundred thousand votes across the half-dozen or so states that remain true toss-ups, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. A would-be strongman. In the Before Times – back before Trump descended his golden escalator to announce his candidacy in 2015 – a candidate facing 91 felony counts in four different cases, who accepted money from foreign governments for his personal business while in office, who’s been denounced by multipleformer cabinet members and aides who worked with him up close, and who, oh yeah, ended the nation’s previously unbroken streak of peaceful transfers of power, on January 6, 2021, would not have been viewed as qualified to manage a Popeye’s franchise, let alone fit for the highest office in the land. But, hey, that was then. In 2024, Trump is moving even further away from the traditional norms of American politics: of course, he not only continues to claim, endlessly and falsely, that Biden and the Democrats stole the 2020 election, but also now promises to govern in a second term as a very un-American strongman, using the power of the government to imprison political enemies and the military to put down domestic dissent, while ending the traditional independence of the U.S. Justice Department and sacking tens of thousands of civil service public employees in favor of people loyal only to him. And, in callbacks to 1930s-era fascist rhetoric, he’s saying the quiet part out loud. “We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections,” Trump said in a Veterans Day speech. “They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American Dream.” “The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within,” he added, saying his political enemies pose a greater threat than “Russia, China, North Korea.” Or, as he famously told his former Chief of Staff John Kelly, "Hitler did a lot of good things." It’s for such foreboding reasons that political scientists already have characterized 2024 as “the most important election since 1860.” Former Republican House member Liz Cheney, daughter of ex-Vice-President Dick Cheney, who was a Before Times conservative icon, saw her political career wrecked as she became a GOP pariah, after voting to impeach Trump over Jan. 6, 2021, and then leading the congressional investigation into his role in the violence. “We will be voting on whether to preserve our republic,” she wrote in “Oath and Honor,” her recent memoir covering those events. “As a nation, we can endure damaging policies for a four-year term. But we cannot survive a president willing to terminate our Constitution.” Further reading. Doug Sosnik is a 67-year old political strategist who served in the Clinton White House, whose occasional, disinterested, big picture political memos are must-reading in Washington. This one, on how education has become the most critical dividing line in American politics, is a salient and dispassionate guide to the 2024 political landscape. JR A version of this analysis was published this week in the Santa Barbara Independent. Image: Joe Biden-Donald Trump photo illustration from NBC News.

The right-wing pundit diaspora of Santa Barbara's forsaken, bankrupt, and deceased daily newspaper has re-connected to produce a recently-launched online journal of local conservative analysis and opinion. Local government gadfly James Fenkner, publisher of the digital "Santa Barbara Currents," joined the Newsmakers TV panel this week for a look behind-the-scenes at the project, which claims already to have accumulated several thousand subscribers to its daily newsletter, produced and distributed on the writing platform "Substack." Fenkner, who has led several political and legal crusades against both City Hall and the Santa Barbara Unified School District (think vacation rental restrictions and school curricula based on identity), said the collapse of the morning paper left journalistically homeless an opining crew, which ranges from center-right to Trump extremism, including the redoubtable Andy Caldwell, City Hall maven Bonnie Donovan and essayist Robert Eringer; they joined forces with former Montecito Journal owner Jim Buckley, who'd been writing a personal Substack for a year, and who became editor-in-chief when the enterprise dispatched its first newsletter in November (though who, if anyone, edits Buckley's quotidian right-wing rants on the site remains a mystery). Callie Fausey returned to break down a batch of news from the Santa Barbara Unified School District which unfolded this week, including the inaugural of new trustee board member, Dr. Sunita Beall; a new recalculation of how many millions the district screwed the teachers out of last year because of an "accounting error"; and the latest from the grim-sounding contract negotiations between the district and the teachers' union. Josh Molina provides a blow-by-blow description of City Council member Meagan Harmon rhetorical defenestration of colleague Mike Jordan on Tuesday, during a spirited discussion of the latest new tenant protection legislation, as the latter tried to run the old delay-for-more-data play to put off a vote on the contentious matter, and then voted for a watered-down version of what tenants wanted (a bow to the real estate industry afterJordan, running for re-election, previously struck a far more pro-renter stance, Josh notes). Plus: big developments in the morning paper's bankruptcy case; a look at some new state environmental laws; and a political embararssment for Supervisor Das Williams, who earned the ignominious honor of becoming the county's only Democratic candidate on the March 5 ballot to fail to secure the endorsement of the Women's Political Committee. Amazing but true, sometimes bad actions really do have consequences. JR Check out the new episode on YouTube below or by clicking through this link, The podcast version is here. TVSB, Channel 17, airs the show every weeknight at 8 p.m. and at 9 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday. KCSB, 919.9 FM, broadcasts the program at 5:30 p.m. on Monday. CARTOON OF THE WEEK Cartoon by Shannon Wheeler for The New Yorker.

Frank T. Troise, a rich and savvy whiz in the ravening realm of global business, is now running for the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors, confident his private sector professional skills would flourish in the weird world of politics. Well. President Tom Steyer, Governor Meg Whitman, Senator Norton Simon and Santa Barbara Mayor Angel Martinez would like a word. As every school child knows, those four grandees are high-profile members of a singular political species, whose bleached white bones litter the California campaign landscape: capitalist superstars who famously flopped in electoral efforts at relocation in the public sphere. "One of the major problems with wealthy business types attempting to cross over into politics is their own -- how shall we say? - inflated self-impression," wrote California warhorse operative-turned-pundit Garry South. "Many really do envision themselves as smarter and more accomplished than officeholders who have succeeded in the political system for years or decades." One term and out. Now comes Troise, a longtime resident of Santa Ynez with an extensive and varied business career, to challenge Third District Supervisor Joan Hartmann, who is seeking a third term (sorry, no term limits for Supervisors, a story for another day). "There is incredible frustration with the status quo," Troise said In an interview last week, one of a continuing series of conversations with candidates in the March 5 election, co-sponsored and produced by Newsmakers in partnership with Josh Molina's "Santa Barbara Talks" podcast. In our interview, Troise spoke dismissively of the incumbent as a creature of the county "Democratic Party machine," while sketching in very broad strokes a new "$200 million revenue stream," which he said would solve the county's chronic budget woes in a jiffy. A major chunk of his program, labelled "New Climate Framework," would require revisiting the extremely controversial matter of restarting an oil pipeline owned by ExxonMobil; last August, the supervisors rejected the oil company's bid, on a 2-to-2 vote, with Hartmann abstaining because, she said, the pipeline runs nearby her home. The election of Troise would flip the balance of power on the ExxonMobil issue; he said the board was foolish to turn down the oil company instead of entering into a negotiation with them which, he asserted, could yield concessions worth $30-50 million annually for the county, So certain is Troise of the merit of his revenue proposal, and of his ability to navigate the political riptides and cross currents of county environmental politics that, he said, he would need only one term to get it done, promising to not run for re-election, In a politically puzzling addendum, he also vowed to quit the race and endorse either Hartmann or Lompoc Mayor Jenelle Osborne, the third candidate in the Third District contest, if they pledged to accept and champion his platform. "I will endorse whichever candidate supports our platform’s plan/focus on revenue," he wrote in an email to Newsmakers. So there's that. Not a Trump fan. Voluble and loquacious, if not perfectly capable of talking the hind legs off a donkey, Troise is a 57-year old Republican, who took pains in the interview to distance himself from Donald Trump. He also stated that, as a political matter, he is uninterested in the agenda of contentious social issues that now motivates a major segment of the GOP electorate nationally -- restricting abortion, gay, and trans rights, while grafting evangelical Christian beliefs and values onto the federal government, for example. "We can't be talking about the cultural issues," he said, emphasizing his campaign focus on fiscal matters. In his business career, Troise previously held executive positions with Lehman Brothers, J.P. Morgan and Barclay's Capital, before he founded Soho Capital LLC, a private investment firm, in 1997. The company, which he dicussed in our interview, has offices in "Singapore, Zurich, Montecito, and Incline Village," according to Troise's bio on the website of the U.S. Import-Export Bank. He holds an appointed seat on the bank's (all-rise) "Advisory Subcommittee on Strategic Competition with the People’s Republic of China," aka the "Council on China Competition." From the site: CEOs worldwide at the apex of finance and technology have retained SoHo’s team as a strategic advisors (sic), operating executives, and investment bankers to help their companies successfully expand in Asia and Europe.., Frank has over twenty five years of experience managing multi-billion dollar portfolios for corporations, endowments, foundations, and high net worth individuals. SoHo’s domain expertise for global FIS clients includes the selection, on-boarding, monitoring and distribution of platform products, which span SMAs, mutual funds, long only funds, UCITS, alternatives, offshore hedge funds, exchange traded funds (ETFs), private equity and real estate offerings. So now you know. P.S. In a bemusing quirk, Troise did not mention Hartmann by name during our talk, referring to her only as "the incumbent," as he repeatedly insisted his true opponent is "Darcel" without ever, actually, you know, explaining who the heck this "Darcel" person is (although, full disclosure, you can blame that oversight on the genial hosts). For those without a Local Politics Secret Decoder Ring, his reference is to Darcel Elliott, the Chair of the Santa Barbara County Democratic Party. Conveniently for Dems, Darcel also knocks down a taxpayer-financed salary package of nearly $200,000 in her patronage gig as chief of staff to Supervisor Das Williams, who also is running for re-election. But we digress. JR Check out our conversation with Frank Troise on YouTube below, or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here. TVSB, Channel 17, airs Newsmakers every weeknight at 8 p.m., and at 9 a.m. on weekends. KCSB, 91.9 FM, broadcasts the program at 5:30 p.m. on Monday. i

Roy Lee assailed Das Williams as "the worst kind of career politician" on Friday, as the Carpinteria City Council member opened his long shot, insurgent challenge to the incumbent First District supervisor. "It's time for a change," Lee said. In his first interview of the campaign, Lee contrasted his private sector background with that of Williams, who has been running and winning elections for various local offices for more than 20 years. He also outlined substantive differences with the incumbent on cannabis, debris flow protection, housing and other key issues. Our conversation with Lee is the first in a series of unedited interviews with candidates in key local races in the March 5 election, being produced and broadcast by a partnership between Newsmakers and the "Santa Barbara Talks" podcast, created by Josh Molina, who joined the genial host on January 5 in questioning Lee. An immigrant story. The 41-year old contender owns Uncle Chen, a family-run restaurant that has served Chinese and Szechuan cuisine in Carpinteria since 1991. As a small child, he emigrated with his parents from Taiwan, and attended Dos Pueblos High School, SB City College and UCSB, majoring in History. Now in his second term as an elected official, Lee has been a moderate voice on Carp's city council, combining small business sensibilities with a focus on pragmatic issues like street repair and water supply, and a cautious, preservationist perspective on new development, particularly on the city's long-disputed, seaside Carpinteria Bluffs. As a political matter, Lee faces tough odds in unseating Williams, who is seeking a third term on the Board of Supervisors representing the First District, which includes most of the city of Santa Barbara and Montecito, as well as Carpinteria.. The March 5 election officially is a statewide primary, but will be decisive for the First District race; with only two candidates on the ballot, there will be no run-off in the Nov. 5 general election, in contrast to many other contests. State of play. As the front-runner Williams is an experienced, fierce and indefatigable candidate who, with only 60 days to go, enjoys a huge fundraising advantage over Lee of several hundred thousand dollars. He also benefits from his domination of the local Democratic Party, which provides battalions of volunteers and other organizational assets; among other boons, Williams has made patronage appointments to public payroll jobs in his office of both the party's chair and its longtime top operative, at an annual cost to taxpayers of more than $300,000. As a practical matter, however, Williams also has several political vulnerabilities which Lee will attempt to exploit. He is the chief sponsor of the county's much-criticized cannabis ordinance, which has failed to generate long-promised significant new revenue, while yielding widespread community protest, multiple lawsuits, and a scorching report from the civil grand jury, which censured the lack of transparency and heavy involvement of industry special interests with which Williams and Supervisor Steve Lavagnino crafted it. More recently, the incumbent has clashed with constituents in Montecito, over both a disputed county plan to install more street parking near the Hot Springs Trail, as well as his failure to support public funding to maintain a flood control project involving five large ring nets installed in creeks above the village. The nets were financed and installed via several million dollars of private donations after the deadly 2018 Thomas Fire debris flow, which killed 23 people. Lacking county support for maintenance, the non-profit group that funded the ring nets recently was forced to remove them. Mild-mannered tough rhetoric. Lee's aggressive rhetoric in attacking his rival offers a sharp contrast to his overall low-key and earnest personal style; during a 30-minute interview, he characterized Williams, variously, as "two-faced," and "the worst kind of career politician, beholden to special interests," and complained that he has "made a joke of our community" with the pot ordinance, and is "gambling with people's lives" with his standoffish stance on the ring net issue. "I would've worked with the community and just worked with the county to find the money, to find the budget, whether (I had to) take it out of my salary as a supervisor," he said, when asked what he would have done differently from Williams on the matter. " "My goal is to keep the community safe, and at the very least, just extend the permits, give us more time to come up with a plan. But to totally disregard it and not support it, he is gambling with people lives. It is not right," he added. "That's not leadership that we need. We need someone who is responsible, accountable because at the end of the day, he's putting people lives at risk, and you cannot do that as an elected official." Newsmakers has also invited Supervisor Williams to come onto the show to discuss the campaign, including his reaction to Lee. At post time, he had not yet responded to our invitation. JR Check out our interview with Roy Lee on YouTube below, or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here. TVSB, Channel 17, airs our show every weeknight at 8 p.m. and at 9 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday. KCSB, 91.9 FM, broadcasts the program at 5:30 on Monday. CARTOON OF THE WEEK Cartoon by Asher Perlman for The New Yorker.

An extra-special gaggle of guests, representing Santa Barbara's politics-media ecosystem, gathers on the cusp of 2024 for Newsmakers' Third Annual New Year's Rockin' Eve Show this week, an extra-lively conversation about the most memorable local news stories of 2023. Trigger warning: Things get raucous early on, with a realtime political firefight between two City Hall heavyweights clashing over, what else, the state of State Street. SB Mayor Randy Rowse and his City Council arch-nemesis, Meagan Harmon, square off in an impromptu fracas over policy, planning and progress apropos the dismal state of downtown, most specifically the nine - 9, count 'em, 9 - closed-to-traffic State St. blocks euphemistically designated "The Promenade." Amid a volley of generational insults, matching antiquated Boomer geezer values against callow Millennial lust for social engineering, there were no injuries. Lily Dallow, Hap Freund, Josh Molina and Nick Welsh amplify the high-spirited tone of the seasonal affair, as the gang breaks down what made news in 2023 - and offers some fearless, not to mention fearful, forecasts about 2024. There's little disagreement among the panel about the year's biggest ongoing story: the countless facets of conflict and debate over housing. From battles over rent control, renovictions, La Cumbre Plaza and El Paseo Nuevo, to throw downs about overdue Housing Elements, Builder's Remedy, the Strike Force STR and more density with less parking, Santa Barbara's version of the statewide controversy over Sacramento's damn-local-control demands for construction of more housing dominated the local news agenda. Beyond that, our year-end panel also tackles literacy in public schools, teachers on the economic edge, the performance of SB's new police chief, climate crisis violent weather, the collapse of cannabis revenue and green shoot progress on caring for the homeless and mentally ill street people, critical issues all, directly affecting the lives of every Santa Barbara citizen who votes, pays taxes, has kids, shops in stores, or uses indoor plumbing. Undaunted by the venerable maxim that making predictions is hard, especially about the future, our guests also offer prognoses for 2024, including a few terrifying political prognostications, with democracy on the ballot. Plus: Nick provides a case study of Man vs. Machine. All this, right here, right now on Newsmakers TV. Check out the show on YouTube below, or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here. TVSB, Channel 17, airs Newsmakers every weeknight at 8 p.m., and on weekend mornings at 9 a.m. KCSB, 91.9 FM, broadcasts the program at 5:30 on Mondays. Thanks for watching, and for reading, and all the best from the far-flung Newsmakers Global Network for a healthy and happy New Year! JR New Year's image: Shutterstock. CARTOON OF THE WEEK Cartoon by Kaamran Hafeez for The New Yorker.

Mark Patton, venerable sports journalist and Noozhawk columnist, makes a star turn on this week's edition of Newsmakers TV, to decipher the Coastal Commission's galling decision to disrupt the UCSB baseball season two months before it starts. In the most high-handed state government action since Gavin Newsom last flapped his gums, the commission torpedoed the Gauchos' plan to replace their water-squandering grass field with an environmentally-discerning artificial surface, a move to better advance the latest left-wing hobbyhorse crusade to emerge from Sacramento, capital of the People's Republic of California. Patton, who covered local, collegiate and professional sports full time for nearly a half-century in Santa Barbara, caught wind a few weeks ago of the startling and unexpected move by commission staff to pull approval of the previously non-controversial change at Caesar Uyesaka Stadium off the agency's mundane consent calendar, reporting which at least ensured the commission's churlish and risible action was subjected to public view. Not to mention ridicule. UCSB was not alone among notable local institutions to get blindsided this week, as Nick Welsh reports in recounting Superior Court Judge Donna Geck's bludgeoning of the Board of Supervisors' recent vote to transfer the county's lucrative ambulance contract next year from AMR, the private firm that long has held a monopoly on the lucrative business, to a coalition of public agencies led by the County Fire Department. Geck's blistering judicial opinion shuts down the pending change, at least until a trial in the case, scheduled to begin next summer. And Josh Molina has the highlights of his lively, one-on-one podcast conversation with Lompoc Mayor Jenelle Osborne, who's disrupted the local Democratic Party's typically disdainful plan to secure an easy re-election win for Third District Supervisor and political sect loyalist Joan Hartmann by having the audacity to launch her own, independent, bid for the seat. Plus: A heart-breaking commemoration for the scores of homeless people who died on the South Coast this year; a big road and infrastructure project aimed at boosting Old Town Goleta; the 50th anniversary of Dos Pueblos Little League; and Mark Patton's multi-generational recollections and tribute to the sadly-departed daily morning newspaper. All this and more, right here, right now on Newsmakers TV. JR Check out the new episode via YouTube below, or by clicking through this link, or listen to the podcast version here. TVSB, Channel 17, airs the show every weeknight at 8 p.m. and at 9 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday. KCSB, 91.9 FM, broadcasts the program on Monday at 5:30 p.m. Image: The UCSB baseball team celebrates the 2016 walk-off win that sent them into the College World Series for the first time (UCSB Baseball). CARTOON OF THE WEEK Cartoon by Ali Solomon for The New Yorker.

Hundreds of students at Santa Barbara and San Marcos high schools poured out of classrooms and into the streets this week, the latest public demonstration on behalf of beleagured teachers in the SB Unified School District seeking better pay and working conditions. As teachers and district officials negotiate over a union demand for a two-year, 23 percent salary increase, a jury in a separate controversy hammered the embattled district with a $25 million verdict, holding SBUSD responsible in a decade-old scandal in which a part-time football coach at Dos Pueblos High School earlier was convicted of sexually abusing a teenage player. On this week's edition of Newsmakers TV, Gwyn Lurie, Josh Molina and Ryan P. Cruz join the panel to break down the back stories behind the latest acrimony to strike the unsettled administration of Superintendent Hilda Maldonado and the elected school board that recently handed her an extension on her three-year contract. The gang also takes an early look at the 2024 re-election races of Supervisors Das Williams, who has stirred up new antagonism among First District residents with his failure to secure county funding for a popular Montecito debris flow control project, and of his incumbent colleague Joan Hartmann, who has drawn a second challenger in the Third District in the person of Lompoc Mayor Jenelle Osborne. Plus the latest on efforts by the Santa Barbara City Council to protect tenants facing eviction - and Henry makes a loud and exciting canine cameo appearance with his new cousin, a rescue pug named Momo. All this and more, right here, right now on Newsmakers TV. JR Check out the latest episode via YouTube below or by clicking through this link, or listen to the podcast version here. TVSB, Channel 17, broadcasts the show at 8 p.m. every weeknight, and at 9 a.m. on weekends. KCSB, 91.9 FM, airs the program at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, CARTOON OF THE WEEK Cartoon by Ellis Rosen for The New Yorker.