On June 6th, which is the day following the primary election, my guest will be Candace Andersen. Mrs. Andersen should know by 11:30 am on Wednesday, how Contra Costa County's District 2 Supervisor's race turned out.
County Supervisor is a non-partisan office, and unlike the Stark-Swalwell-Pareja election, whoever gets over 50% of the vote in District 2 is the victor. If the three candidates split the votes, then the two highest vote getters will face off in the Fall. If that happens I expect Andersen and Van de Brooke would continue on to the November election.
It's possible, but unlikely in my opinion, that one of the other two candidates could finish with 50+%. If so, I'd ask Andersen what she plans to do next. However if Andersen receives a majority of the votes on June 5th, I will be interviewing "Supervisor-Elect, Candace Andersen!"
My guest on June 13th is Ron Brown, Executive Director of Save Mount Diablo. I've been trying to recruit him as a guest after the San Francisco Business Times reported that Brown was named Business Person of the Year by the Walnut Creek Chamber of Commerce. This is quite an honor for a director of a non-profit organization. I also wanted to ask Brown about Save Mount Diablo's involvement in and financial support of the "No on Measure W," campaign last year.
So far my Blogtalkradio interviews have not had any callers. I've decided since these are only half hour shows, not to take any calls. Most of my listeners listen to the recordings of the interviews at a later date and time. This way I'm able to spend more time with each guest and ask more questions.
If you want to ask one of my guests a question, please post it as a reply to my blog. A reader of the Pleasanton Weekly posted a question for Mr. Swalwell as a reply to my Town Hall announcement of the show. It was a good question and I asked it at the start of my interview of Mr. Swalwell. If any of my San Ramon Express readers would like to ask a question of any of the guests listed here, please post it as a reply to this blog entry.
Now back to this Wednesday's show. My guest, Chris Pareja, is running in the three-way primary on June 5th against Congressman Pete Stark and Dublin City Councilman Eric Swalwell. Pareja is a businessman and a family man who presently lives in Hayward, but according to his website has lived in Richmond, San Leandro, Castro Valley, Fremont, Pleasanton, and Livermore.
Pareja appears to be what many voters say they want in our Federal Government – a citizen who wants to represent the American people and not become a career politician. Pete Stark has spent nearly half his life in politics, which is the definition of a career politician.
Pareja believes that political labels separate people; so he is running as "No party preference," but many of his political positions lean towards the Republican side of the isle. He says on his website, "I find that when I remove the political party labels, Americans agree on issues 70-90% of the time!" He lists what people of all parties told him they want: A strong economy, safe environment, good health care, quality education, and the opportunity to take care of ourselves.
I agree that these cover a lot of what most people want, but the differences are in how to accomplish them. Liberals, Progressives, or Democrats believe Government should help people get these things. Conservatives, Republicans, or Libertarians believe people should be encouraged to do more for themselves. That's the big stumbling block in government right now. It's not about what we want but how to make it happen.
As far as making his Congressional aspirations happen, his campaign recently "launched what it calls the 'largest lawn sign' in the new 15th District. The 27' wide by 15' tall digital billboard in front of Southland Mall is placed in one of the busiest transit corridors in the newly designed Congressional territory which includes the areas between northern Fremont and southern San Leandro and cities east to Livermore." This is a creative use of media for his campaign.
Pareja and Swalwell are running directly against Stark and not so much against each other. Pereja's anti-Stark website, Pete Stark Must Go shows videos of Stark's questionable answers to questions. Swalwell quotes Stark with tough in cheek on Pete Stark Said What?
If both Swalwell and Pareja make the case that "Stark Must Go," it's possible that both of them could wind up running against each other in November, and Stark would be put into early (well not early but involuntary) retirement.
