Squid conquers the true fears of election season, region by region

Early and Often…Squid oozed out to the mailbox, reached for what was inside and found, much to Squid’s surprise, the mailbox was oozing too. It happens around this time of the year, when some of the really slimy campaign mailers gunk up the postal service. But even after Squid wiped the goop off the tentacles and sat down, Squid found Squidself surrounded by still more ooze.

Squid reached for Roscoe P. Coltrane, Squid’s beloved mess of an English bulldog, only to find Roscoe was too busy padding his résumé and practicing barking “I love ag!” Roscoe was tapped by Monterey County Sheriff’s candidate Steve Bernal to run point on his 10-year-plan (for a four-year term), should Bernal actually win.

That’s when Squid became quite frightened.

But Squid has decided to embrace that fear, because it’s just days before Halloween (scary!) and because it’s the week before the election (even scarier!). To work through that fear, Squid has decided to list everything about this election Squid finds scary, beyond the bad election night snacks (leftover Halloween candy would be better than some of the spreads Squid has seen).

In the Prunetucky region of Monterey County, where two excellent candidates (John Phillips and Ed Mitchell) are vying for the District 2 seat of Monterey County Board of Supervisors, Squid fears the person who decided it was smart to go negative against Phillips, a former Monterey County Superior Court judge who founded the nonprofit Rancho Cielo to help get at-risk kids out of the gang life. A mailer sent out last week superimposes Phillips’ face on the broad-shouldered body of a judge in robes, and suggests the recipient get to know “what’s behind the robe.” (The narrative includes quotes from Marina Councilman/defense attorney David Brown, who’s quoted as saying Phillips came across as an “arrogant, tantrum-throwing jerk who liked to screw people with poverty-level incomes,” and comments from former prosecutor Ann Hill, rehashing a post she made on former Herald editor Royal Calkins’ blog decrying what she describes as Phillips’ sexism for how he treated one young female witness who ended up filing a formal complaint against the judge.)

It’s overall a repugnant mailer—and it was paid for by the Service Employees International Union Local 521 Independent Expenditure Committee.

Working Squid’s way down the county, Squid stopped off in Salinas, and fears city manager Ray Corpuz will hire another litigious librarian (a la Elizabeth Martinez) and that the incumbent council members the Weekly endorsed (Kimbley Craig, Steve McShane and Tony Barrera) will somehow find a way to offend that librarian too, forcing Mayor Joe Gunter and councilmembers Jyl Lutes and Gloria de la Rosa to write another fat check. Councilman Jose “Che” Castañeda will probably abstain or refuse to vote at all, like last time. Of course, the incumbents shouldn’t worry. McShane’s competition, Melissa Godwin, has all-but-ceased showing up at campaign events. Barrera challenger Patricia Rubio-Coyt never stood much of a chance. And Craig’s competition, former Internal Revenue Service employee Eric Petersen, is busy forgetting he signed a “clean campaign” pledge (and forgetting to put his state Fair Political Practices Commission number on mailers) as he bashes Craig in a misleading way, calling her anti-business and pro-junket.

In Marina, Squid fears the Insane Clown Posse (Ken Nishi and Howard Gustafson) returning to power at the too-powerful-for-its-own-good Marina Coast Water District, when there are real, committed, smart people who actually believe in transparency (Jan Shriner and Margaret Davis) running.

Over on the Peninsula, Squid has a recurring nightmare: It’s the morning after Election Day. The results are in. Chris Christie is the new U.S. president, the headlines read, and he won it by one vote, after quarantining all the Democratic doctors and international travelers in his state. Squid splashes coffee on Squid’s gelatinous face, shuffles through Squid’s pile of mail and discovers…oh, the horror…Squid forgot to mail Squid’s ballot in.

Then Squid wakes up.

But Squid’s still shaking, because the spectre of narrow-margin wins really does haunt local elections. What if non-voters hand the P.G. mayors’ election to John Moore, who promptly shrinks all city services until they can be drowned in the Lovers Point kids' pool? Or Fort Ord conservationists slack off, allowing the hot-for-development incumbents to hold onto their Seaside City Council seats, thus putting Monterey Downs—whose environmental impact report, conveniently, is being delayed until after the election—on a fast horse track to approval? Help us, Seaside candidate Jason Campbell, you’re our only hope!

And back to the sheriff’s race: Squid’s always a little skeptical of law enforcement types, but Sheriff Scott Miller knows his stuff. He’s got a lifetime of experience as a cop and manager, speaks fluent Spanish, and sees more complexity to public safety than cuffing people. The contrast makes Squid’s gelatinous body jiggle with fear as Squid contemplates the alternative: Bernal, who’s never been promoted from his deputy position in 14 years on the job, and comes from the ranks of the sheriff’s South County office, aka “The Abalone.” Salinas deputies affectionately refer to the King City substation as such because, like the shimmery mollusk, it mostly just sits there. It’s not the place to groom someone to run the region’s largest law enforcement agency.

Most of all—more than losing Roscoe to a big-ag-backed candidate, even—Squid fears low voter turnout.