What was a bit surprising was how strongly Republican Rudy Peters of Livermore polled, picking up more than 27 percent with a doctrinaire set of positions.
Brendan St. John of Pleasanton, a former Republican who ran as an independent, got no traction with his more moderate position. He received little more than 3 percent of the vote.
It reminds me of Livermore and its growth wars. There were council members elected on the no-growth ledger who moderated their positions while in office. That prompted the reaction from their former supporters and they failed in re-election campaigns. The saying goes that he who stands in the middle of the road gets run over by both sides.
There was good news in Alameda County where District Attorney Nancy O’Malley easily won re-election over challenger Pamela Price, who has no experience as a prosecutor. She was backed by liberal billionaire George Soros, who targeted a few district attorney races in California. His candidate finished well out of the running in San Diego County as well.
Law enforcement leaders and rank-and-file were very concerned about Price’s candidacy given her pledge not to prosecute misdemeanors. That would have been a disaster for the county.
So, it will be business as usual for the county and, in this case, that’s a good thing.
Learned something new this month. I clicked on an online ad for an outfit called NewChic. It offered very favorable prices on men’s sandals so I ordered a pair. The shipping was $7 on a $35 purchase so not extreme. After concluding the transaction, the shipping info appeared. I was dealing with a Chinese company.
When the sandals arrived, they did not fit. I went through the process of returning them, got the authorization with the note that the company would not pay to return them. The return address was Guangzhou, China. When I asked my neighborhood Pak and Ship owner what it would cost, he said it was more than $40.
My donation is forthcoming.
When I was telling the story, another customer chimed in that she had bought sheets from a company with both United States and offshore operations. Her online deal for bedding was with the English company—same story, shipping here was reasonable—it was prohibitive to return them.
So, buyer beware.
