Here’s a link to Friday’s Editor’s Roundtable, on KPBS, if you missed me, Chris Reed from the Union-Tribune and J.W. August from KGTV.
Reed was pretty hard on San Diego City Council President Scott Peters — wondering how he could have gotten to be the council president without a very “agile” political mind. It was a product of our discussion on the City Council’s recent awkward decision to award its members, in coming years, a 24 percent raise.
You know my feelings on that.
And I think Peters was bizarrely unprepared for the political fallout of that move.
I’ve often been surprised by his seeming surprise at the way people react to his decisions and actions.
I was at a meeting of Progressive San Diego the other night where Peters was mildly heckled during his short speech. He had a bit more trouble connecting with the left than he should. After all, he’s supposed to be the alternative choice for those left-leaning voters who are disillusioned with City Attorney Mike Aguirre but not interested in supporting the conservative options.
He would do better with succinct speeches like this little talk that is available on YouTube:
It’s very good. It’s short, to the point, and yet it’s able to communicate so much: That he’s a good lawyer, that he will fight for environmental laws, and that he’s sympathetic to business needs and jobs. If he can figure out how to talk like that more often, and somehow drive the conversation away from the City Council’s past misdeeds, he might have a chance.
But that’s a big if.