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When did we annex the Bay Area?
By adamg on Wed, 09/24/2008 - 11:02pm
Councilor Yoon begins mayoral bid 3,000 miles from city he wants to lead (although a Yoon spokesman says the effort there is "unauthorized").
Silicon Valley blogger thinks that would just be marvy.
What? You didn't get an invitation to the kickoff event?
Yoon's 2008 contributions to date - more from out of state than from Massachusetts residents (Excel spreadsheet from data compiled by the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance).
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Comments
Note to Sam, Sam, as you
Note to Sam,
Sam, as you know you have to get people in Boston to vote for you to become Mayor of Boston. There have been many people before you who have tried very hard to win the job from Menino and they have failed as well. While money is very important in elections it is also important that you not annoy and insult the residents of Boston. Bostonians (and people from Massachusetts in particular) are not very fond of their politicians doing things anywhere else, as we feel we are the "hub" of the universe as it is. Mitt Romney saw his approval ratings drop very quickly after he started touring the country as Governor in his prequest for the presidency. John Kerry got slammed for having his official kick off in South Carolina while having a "fake" kick off in Boston. If people feel that your campaign is being run on Califorina money they will not vote for you, and all the money in the world will not change that.
amen
shady, you said exactly what i was thinking. i think it is sad to go out of the area to fundraise, when those people won't be voting for this guy.
well stated.
i hope Sam figures it out fast... for his sake.
i hope Sam figures it out
Yeah, I personally like the guy. I think he has good ideas, and is a fresh face who could do alot of good. He is not nearly as young as he looks (although 35 is still pretty young in political world) and has an interesting background. He just obviously needs a touch up on the perils of slighting the voters (and in Boston people are easily slighted!)
Nothing wrong with raising money out of state, per se
Especially in a city with a vengeful mayor, but it just seems kind of unseemly that the first media notice we get of the Yoon-for-Mayor boomlet is of an event on the other coast. But I should probably download Michael Flaherty's donor list today.
Flaherty: 92% instate donors
Flaherty's donors are overwhelmingly in-state. Of $1.37 million raised since 2005, only 109K are out of state. He's raised less in CA since 2005 than Yoon has in 2008.
Thanks
Fast with the Excel, I see :-).
Fastest
Fastest sum(if) in the East.
More tidbits: the most common last name among Yoon contributors was Kim, with $3,900 from 21 Kims, and the most common last name contributing to Flaherty was Walsh, with 54 Walshes contributing $9,200. No Walshes contributed to Yoon, and no Kims contributed to Flaherty.
Agreed
your FIRST fundraising kick off major event should be where you want to serve.
I sort of have a problem when polititians reach out to far far away states for cash, especially when the cash may only be motivated by skin color or ethnicity...
kind of bothers me somewhat.
i personally do not like mayor tom. for the life of me i cannot figure out how he keeps getting elected. but i don't feel comfortable with someone getting totally bankrolled from away, in order to bankroll his or her efforts towards office.
other thoughts? buehler? anyone?
Ground Control to Mayor Tom
for the life of me i cannot figure out how he keeps getting elected.
As one of those people who keeps voting for him (well, true confession: Last time out I voted for Hennigan, just to keep him honest), my reasons are fairly simple:
Our neighborhood is safe, the trash gets picked up, the kidlet's getting a decent education in a Boston public school.
Sure, our mayor is kind of boring, he has a thin skin, he hates street performers, he's not the most articulate guy and he's developing an edifice complex (see the new City Hall and the Tommy Tower), but on the ground, he still gets things done and I think that he's a decent person. I'm not saying I'll just blindly vote for him next year, but I will need a bit more convincing it's time for a change.
Ditto
And I don't even have a kid in public schools. There are items where I don't agree with Menino, but on most city obligations he's fast and responsive in my experience. The Mayor's Hotline number *actually* gets things done with more alacrity than I ever expected from a government customer service division. While many streets need help, the biggest problem sections are often taken care of. He's one of the first big city mayors to adopt green technology and alternate transportation initiatives. All in all, I just don't find too many faults with him, so I'm happy to just keep the train moving forward on the same tracks.
thank you for explaining
thank you
for explaining that.
I had heard somewhere that
I had heard somewhere that the major communist states failed not because of ideology and freedom but because they couldnt fill the potholes and pick up the garbage.
People care more about everyday issues because thats what affects them everyday.
No Different Elsewhere
"Mayor" is about as local as a local office gets - even if you can see Russia from your window. I can't think of a place that I know on the west coast where the concerns would be any different. Kerry was running for a national office, at least.
Boston is a very provincial place, but local office is local office just about anywhere. A substantial amount of money coming from outside raises questions about who you work for in Bellingham and Birmingham and Madison too.
Interesting spreadsheet
So much information there. Cool spreadsheet (cooler site)! One wonders about the Chang family of Ellicot City / Columbia, Maryland, from which a total of nine members (A., Bok, In, Jacob, Samuel, Tony, Young, Kyung, and Kyung's husband Doug Lee) all contributed $500.00 each, the maximum, on the same day. Looking into my crystal ball, I see that some of these names are very politically astute children and family pets.
Obviously, based on the list of names, what Yoon is doing is trying to raise money based on ethnic affinity. If that's the strategy, it makes some sense to fund-raise out in Cali (and in Ellicot City, MD, apparently...) My half-chinese brother is much happier there (and hates Boston) because nobody out there asks him where he's from. You want asians, go where the asians are.
As many others here in Boston, I have a good opinion of the man. I think he's conducted himself very well in office. If someone is going to try to take on Menino, he's got as much of a shot as anybody.
But it does raise questions. Is he going to be managing Boston by proxy for a group of California financiers? Is this an asian invasion? Will they colonize us next?
Yoon would do well to pay attention to those numbers and make sure he rebalances the numbers so his MA contributions are the majority by end of year. If you look at Menino's contributions since 2005, the MA contributions are 93% of the total. It'd not be too hard for him to run as the local candidate against Yoon.
Wierd
Having grown up just outside of Ellicott City, I have to guess that those people are mostly family or friends of family or something like that. There's not really any appreciable overabundance of ethnicity in Ellicott City. There is however an appreciable overabundance of wealth in that area.
Good Obs, Kaz
He's young enough that he may have hit up well-heeled elders in his family - aunts, uncles, cousins ... like most people would.
Are extended family contributions to other candidates, local or not, of the same order of magnitude? He very well might just be hitting up grandma for seed money for his continued campaign.
I think the flap is over
I think the flap is over this invitation which is obviously not about a family BBQ.
Another possibility
Yoon is a co-founder (along with Yul Kwon from Survivor and NYC councilman John Liu) of the Asian Political Leadership Fund, a 527 group for promoting Asian American involvement in politics. It's possible that the fund's operations are located in Ellicott City because of its proximity to DC (and wealthy base). It could also explain why the kickoff party was in San Fran since that's where Yul is currently living in San Mateo.
Bingo
From today's Herald:
This is all stemming from his ties to his 527 fund.
Long live the mayor
Mumbles is an institution. I really don't disagree with a lot of what he does. It's more the state goverment that really riles me up.
Meh.
I would disagree, but I am afraid something bad would happen to me.
this is a surprise?
Boston and San Fran resemble each other. Unfortunately, they are nothing like the rest of America. Yoon started asking for money at the Brighton tolls and made it to the Bay Bridge before he got a positive response. Considering how arrogant and self-absorbed both towns are, Yoon may just pull it off.
Wild distortion
Yoon started asking for money at the Brighton tolls and made it to the Bay Bridge before he got a positive response.
I'm pretty sure I provided evidence above as to why he was holding a fundraiser in San Fran (he is co-founder of a political fundraising group with someone who lives in San Fran) that has nothing to do with him asking here and not receiving a positive response until he reached there.
In fact, the data in the Excel file linked above speaks otherwise since many of his donations are from MA as well.
You know, sometimes your cynicism is just your opinion and sometimes it wildly distorts the truth in order to be cynical, clever, or inappropriate. This would seem to be the latter.
Yoon started asking for
Even though I dont agree with the context this is the funniest thing Ive read all day lol