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Bill Silverfarb
| | Posted on Thursday, September 28, 2006 - 10:07 am: | |
Politics as (un)usual
Bill Silverfarb
Soon after Assembly Speaker Pro Tem Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, thumped his Democratic opponent for state Senate, Mike Nevin, in the June primary, he introduced legislation that infuriated many local leaders on the Peninsula, including San Mateo Mayor John Lee.
Assembly Bill 2409 intended to save California’s struggling horse racing industry by allowing gamblers to wager on historical races via a slot machine.
For the group wanting to save Bay Meadows this piece of legislation was seen as a god send. For San Mateo city planners and councilmembers, however, this bill was seen as an obstacle in developing the aging race track into high-density housing and commercial space, a plan years in the making.
San Mateo’s mayor, a Republican, was so outraged by this legislation that he publicly said Yee could “go to hell.”
On Tuesday, at the Beresford Hillsdale Neighborhood Association Candidate’s Forum, Lee sat in the audience to hear Yee and his Republican counterpart, Mike Skipakevich, square off on the issues.
The two candidates discussed transportation issues, Proposition 90 – the so-called “Protect Our Homes Act” and finally Bay Meadows and the decline of horse racing in the state.
Skipakevich admitted he did not know much about the eminent domain proposition or Bay Meadows. His focus was on education and the lack of a sound disaster preparedness plan in the district.
Mayor Lee, who has been a Republican all his life, wasn’t very impressed with Skipakevich. In fact, it sounds like the man he told to “go to hell” a couple months ago will actually earn Lee’s vote.
“He’s all we got,” Lee said of Yee.
What was the deciding factor for Lee? Yee admitted horse racing is dying and his historical betting bill has been scrapped.
But wait a minute, Skipakevich says.
“Yee is just telling the audience what they want to hear,” he says.
“Yee is a psychologist and a double threat,” he says.
“He knows how the mind works and how to get people to agree with him,” he says.
Could this be true?
By Mayor Lee’s swing of opinion over the past couple of months one could argue that it just might be true.
To Skipakevich, Yee’s rhetoric is politics as usual.
“He’s a hypocrite. He says what the lobbyists tell him to say,” Skipakevich says.
Skipakevich, a South San Francisco resident, is quick to point out he is not beholden to special interests, in fact, he doesn’t even have the backing of his own party.
“The Republican Party considers me a waste of time,” he says.
The man who did get the Republican Party nomination for the June primary, Oscar Braun, lost to Skipakevich by 3,210 votes. Braun was so impressed by Skipakevich he offered him a job with his marketing firm, one of several job titles Skipakevich has.
Although Skipakevich is gainfully employed he happily admits he only has $51.04 in his campaign war chest compared to Yee’s $99,102.19, according to the latest campaign filing report.
Skipakevich is an unusual candidate. He doesn’t have the support of his own party, he has no money to campaign with and, oh yeah, I forgot to mention – he is only 18 years old.
An 18 year old, who has only voted one time in his life, was somehow able to convince 12,201 people to vote for him in the June primary.
And now he squares off against a political heavyweight in the fight for Jackie Speier’s District 8 Senate seat.
Although I admire the young man’s ambition, his candidacy really just highlights the absolutely sorry state of the Republican Party in this county. It’s as if Republican leadership in Sacramento has decided San Mateo County and the Peninsula as a whole are lost causes.
The Republican Party is so sorry in this county that it can’t even support its own candidate – a candidate who is only 18 years old.
It’s embarrassing. I’m starting to understand why someone such as Supervisor Jerry Hill would ditch the Republican Party in favor of the Democratic Party. Perhaps that is what Skipakevich will do one day – ditch the Republicans.
I applaud this young man’s effort. I do believe he is a capable person and with some time under his belt, to understand how politics and the world really works, he just might make a fine leader one day.
Unfortunately, the political party he belongs to doesn’t really have a place on the Peninsula; and by the way it treats its own candidates it may never have a place here.
Bill Silverfarb’s column runs every Friday. He can be reached by e-mail: silverfarb@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 104. What do you think of this column? Send a letter to the editor: letters@smdailyjournal.com.
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