11
2003
There’s been a lot written about how getting a flu shot doesn’t – at least this year – keep you from getting the flu.
These stories are accurate.
Two feverish observations on the mayor’s race, however.
Mayor-elect Gavin Newsom managed to have voters return more than 70,000 mail-in ballots. And chances are good that most of those ballots came from well-off, more conservative voters – the kind of people who often ignore local elections. They’re rich enough, or live in nice enough neighborhoods that they don’t have to worry about a lot of bread and butter issues like cops and zoning stuff.
This little organizational tactic is a good one for anyone in California politics to tuck away for later use. Mail-in voters, it seems to me, are more likely to be swayed by the person who’s getting them to mail-in. Mail-in is universal in this state. I’d look for it to be used again as a get-out-the-vote tactic particularly for issues that are welcome but perhaps not so popular.
Also worth nothing: the high turn-out in the city’s newly wealthy neighborhoods: Noe (59%), Castro, Diamond Heights (59%). Clearly, they didn’t all vote for Gonzalez.