Pressure Campaign

Pressure Campaign… Squid loves a good race – any time a sea star challenges a sea cucumber, Squid settles in with plenty of shrimp-flavored popcorn, because it’s going to be a long one. In elections, things move faster – they get decided by voters on a timeline.

That is, unless candidates pressure each other behind-the-scenes to drop out first.

Squid’s colleague requested public records from the City of Monterey and discovered that before he started trying to intimidate the Monterey County Weekly and current Mayor Tyller Williamson (among others) into silence, Monterey mayoral candidate Vince Malfitano took on another perceived enemy. Alice Wik-Crosby announced herself on social media as a “multi-dimensional momma,” massage therapist, photographer and candidate for mayor. She pulled papers to run, but then wrote to the Clerk on Aug. 6 to say she was withdrawing from the race with the note, “I guess Vince got his way.”

She shared a message Malfitano had sent someone named Josh, asking for a favor. “Is there anything you can do with regard to Alice… Her entrance in the race kind of muddies the waters for me… Do you think you have enough clout with her to get her to not run.”

Malfitano’s campaign manager, Carina Powers, says they were joking – “it was not a serious effort to pressure her to leave.”

But she did. That makes this a two-way race, but Squid is watching to the finish.

Aim and Miss… Squid’s heard the saying “no good deed goes unpunished,” meaning helping someone can lead to trouble. In the case of AIM Youth Mental Health, it sidestepped potential punishment after Rep. Jimmy Panetta, a long-time AIM supporter, offered a private lunch with him to be auctioned off in support of the nonprofit. A silent online auction is set to close on Oct. 8 before a gala in Pebble Beach.

Lunch with Panetta was advertised alongside 20 experiences and gifts. The suggested starting bid was $100 – one of the less expensive items compared to a winemaker’s luncheon with a starting bid of $1,000, and a rare bottle of perfume starting at $2,500.

Squid quickly realized the lunch might run afoul of Internal Revenue Services and Federal Election Commission regulations. Auctioning off a private meal with a political candidate could be considered using the nonprofit’s event to highlight that candidate; FEC rules might see the auction prize as an in-kind contribution benefiting the candidate’s campaign.

Squid’s colleague reached out to AIM to ask about it, and Founder/Board Chair Susan Stillwell responded immediately – the Panetta lunch was pulled within minutes, avoiding any potential violations.

Red tape aside, Squid is rooting for AIM to do well at the gala, to support its important work funding youth mental health research and advocacy.