HALF-BAKED… Squid enjoys a good party. Squid’s colleagues share that joie de vivre, which is partly why they all reached out to local political candidates to find out if they were having election night parties, and if so, where.
It’s a straightforward question the Weekly asked all candidates in contested races, but when it came to Marina mayoral candidate Kevin Saunders, things somehow – as they often do with Saunders – went off the rails. Squid’s colleague emailed Kitty Merchant, Saunders’ campaign manager, asking if, when and where they’d be having a party. Merchant’s response spoke to the if – “Of course we are… ” – but that was all she wrote. A follow-up email about the when and where was not answered, but the next morning, Saunders’ took to Weekly Interim Editor Sara Rubin’s Facebook page, where he invoked anti-Semitism, attacking Rubin on account of her presumed Jewish heritage.
“When I’m elected in 6 days, I will use my position and power to ‘bring light’ to the ‘inequities’ at The MC Weekly,” he wrote. “This lightweight has zero business being an Editor and is such ONLY because she is a Zionist and bears the last name, Rubin!” Saunders also claims to be polling at 52 percent; Squid wonders who he’s asking.
A few things: 1) Does Saunders remind you of a presidential candidate? 2) Vote.
DARK MONEY… Squid’s not sure if Election Day will leave Squid with a feeling for relief – it’s finally over! – or emptiness. But Squid knows election mailers have been overstuffing the mailbox, and TV ads are starting to blur together. So when Squid heard what sounded like gibberish at the end of the latest commercial for Casey Lucius, who’s running against Jimmy Panetta for Congress, Squid thought it was part of the blur.
“Our community has never sent a woman to Congress. Let’s make history. Let’s shatter the glass ceiling,” the ad says, capitalizing on the Year of the Woman trope. (Ironic, as another recent Lucius ad pumps up her housewife credentials: “I know what it’s like to juggle 18 things at once,” she says, while packing a boy’s lunchbox, then handing a man a cup of coffee – and receiving a basket of dirty laundry from him.)
Squid had to replay the new ad a few times before the super-speed gibberish naming a super PAC was audible: “American Freedom Builders Action Network is responsible for the content of this ad.” The PAC is a conservative group managed by Joel Riter of Ohio, who wrote in his founding paperwork with the FEC it “intends to raise funds in unlimited amounts.” Some of those hard-to-trace millions – $52,913, to be precise – were spent on Oct. 27, to fund the Lucius ad.
Maybe some of that would be better spent on laundry service, so Lucius can build some of her own freedom.