I have a question for Moorpark School Board Member Nathan Sweet.

What's the most surprising thing you have learned since you started serving on the Moorpark School Board? Who has helped you the most learn how to be an effective school board member?

Ventura County Star Reporter Timm Herdt has been analyzing the election results to find out more than who won. He has been tracking trends to measure how much of a bellwether Ventura County is for California.

Ventura County Democrats lost ground in statewide races like governor in the 2010 midterm elections. But no Ventura County partisan seat switched party control including State Assembly or Congressional seats. That would make the results look closer to a draw to me once we consider the nonpartisan seats including school board seats.

Democrats were able to elect many qualified progressives to school board seats across Ventura County. The new group of school board members includes many party supporters who will create a base of support for other candidates. In addition, Democrats have grown their list of potential candidates for future campaigns.

One such candidate is Nathan Sweet of Moorpark. He is a charismatic leader who is a firefighter, father with young children, and will be on the school board soon. He will have credibility to discuss public safety and education.

I predict he will be a great candidate for higher office in the future.

The results of an election are known both in the short and long term.

Many candidates pay to be included on targeted slate mailers. Sometimes they are deceptive, like when a Republican Simi Valley City Council Member pays to be included on a mailer with the headline: Voter Information Guide for Democrats. That's okay as she helped to fund a mailer for all of the Democrats listed that did not pay!

If there is an asterisk next to a candidate's name that means they paid to be included on the slate mailer. The best I have seen is when conservative Democratic Party Republican Party leader Audra Strickland paid to be on a mailer with John F. Kennedy on it. Audra Strickland is a proud conservative Republican. Her inclusion on that mailer doesn't reflect her voting record.

The endorsement of a party allows access to resources for a candidate including databases of voters, inclusion on official slate mailers, invitations to events, being put on the agenda to speak to party club meetings, and more.

Because of the great campaigns being put on by many proud Democrats like Nathan Sweet, Bob Rust, Marie Panec, and more I expect that Democrats will come out as winners in Ventura County this week. They won't win every contest but they will have a deeper bench of leaders after the ballots are counted.

Here is the full video that had people comparing the President of the United States to Hitler:

Nathan Sweet of Moorpark posted the comment of the week on Facebook:

Did you watch the speech? I plan to watch it tonight.

UPDATE:

NASCAR made an ad to promote the speech to students. They wouldn't have helped out if they thought it was a partisan speech.

I have more videos and pictures to post later this week. If you have videos of pictures from today you want posted send them to me.

Former State Assembly candidate Ferial Masry has news regarding her intentions:

Candidate for Sheriff Geoff Dean (R) worked the crowd. Here he is speaking to Ventura City Council Members Brian Brennan and Ed Summers. I expect Geoff Dean's list of endorsements will be updated with new bipartisan additions soon.

I ran into a friend of this blog Denis O'Leary of Oxnard. Denis has been a long time activist for a variety of progressive causes.

State Assembly candidate Susan Jordan gave a speech that outlined her life story and the causes she supports. Her opponent Das Williams was there too. I will post his picture later. Das, if you have pictures from today you want posted send them in.

Here are a bunch of polls related to the labor day picnic and candidates that were there.

Click here for the news story from The Star.

Firefighter Nathan Sweet earned 2nd place in the Moorpark City City Council Elections, losing to long time school board member David Pollock.

Nathan Sweet ran a great campaign and was really close to being elected. I expect he will stay involved in politics and keep volunteering in his community. Maybe with a few more years experience and community involvement he will run again.

Anyways, this mailer was targeted at Democratic households. He ran as a proud Democrat in a Republican dominated city against a business person endorsed by conservatives Peter Foy and Tony Strickland.

How did running as a proud Democrat work out for him? Well he beat the Republican but ended up losing to another Democrat!

City council races are nonpartisan officially, but with many voters get their cues from their political parties and other elected officials on how to vote their values.

So, how do I explain the success of David Pollock? The most likely answer is that he was familiar to voters because he has served on the Moorpark School Board for many years.

But without any data to prove my argument I would also like to throw out there that David Pollock might have earned his most critical endorsement when Larry Jones, coach of the US Championship Academic Decathlon Team endorsed him.

Politicians like Tony Strickland and Peter Foy might help a candidate with some voters but hinder them with others. Same goes for mentioning your political party.

But Larry Jones is a legendary Academic Decathlon coach, long time Moorpark High School teacher, and has been in the newspapers frequently for bringing pride based on student achievement to the community.

I am glad Moorpark put the position on the ballot instead of appointing someone that then ran as an incumbent. I am also impressed so many community members including David Bagwell, David Pollock, and Nathan Sweet put their names forward for consideration. All of the candidates deserve our respect for running.

Next big local campaign:

County Sheriff.

In the latest update David Pollock (D) is in first, with Nathan Sweet (D) in second and David Bagwell (R) in third.

The numbers appear to be final and even with provisional ballots I don't expect the results to change much.

Congratulations to David Pollock.

I said before that Moorpark voters had some decent candidates running for city council, compared to the rest of us that just had some awful choices to make with the propositions.

I will write a more detailed analysis later but here are some quick thoughts:

The Bagwell campaign had the endorsements of State Senator Tony Strickland and County Supervisor Peter Foy. This obviously could have helped him with Republican voters but announcing it in mailers, his website, and the newspaper could have caused a serious net drag with Democratic voters.

In addition, having Tony Strickland and Peter Foy on his side energized Democratic activists from across Ventura County and beyond.

Many Democrats were motivated to elect someone they agreed with to the Moorpark City Council AND to stop someone that is aligned with Tony Strickland. From his resume David Bagwell is a very impressive community member and I expect he will strongly consider running again.

David Pollock was know to many Moorpark voters from past elections. His experience and name advantage likely pushed him over the top.

Nathan Sweet did a great job for a first time candidate and a relative new comer to Moorpark. I expect he will become more involved by continuing to help in his community and by joining local charitable organizations. I expect to see him running again.

Good night.

BTW: If the elections division somehow updates the unofficial results and it changes anything I will apologize. But that doesn't seem likely as the turn out for this election was very low. How was the line when you went to vote? I have never my precinct so vacant before.

Click here for the results from the elections division.

As I predicted the top candidates so far are David Bagwell, Nathan Sweet, and David Pollock.

Not surprisingly Propositions 1A through 1E are widely expected to fail. Seems like voters across the political spectrum think if they send the same governor and almost the same legislature back to renegotiations a better deal will be emerge. Do you think the next proposal will be better?

Click here for Ventura County results.

Click here for statewide results.

This is an an open thread. What's on your mind?

I am not making any claims that it will influence the vote on Tuesday but Firefighter Nathan Sweet has won my online poll of readers. As is 9PM the results:

Thanks to all of those that voted. Moorpark has many fine candidates to choose from. I know Nathan Sweet and I think he would make a great addition to the Moorpark City Council.

When a vacancy was created on the Moorpark City Council the city could have appointed someone that would then run in the next election as an incumbent. Instead the scheduled an election that allows all candidates to run on a level playing field. It is to the credit of the rest of the city council that they found a way of including voters.

If other boards are in the same situation and want to avoid the cost of an election they could always appoint a place holder until the next election.

Good job Moorpark and good luck figuring our who to vote for on Tuesday!

This election will come down to three candidates: David Pollock, David Bagwell, and Nathan Sweet.

Here is my ongoing online poll:

Whichever candidate is ahead Sunday night I will announce in an entry with their name in the title so it will be up on the front page of Venturacountystar.com on election day.

The Star editorial board has endorsed Moorpark School Board Member David Pollock for the Moorpark City Council. If elected he would resign and someone would be appointed to replace him.

I am a big critic of politicians appointing someone that then runs as an incumbent with the advantages that go along with running as an incumbent. I would rather have someone that will only serve until the next election. Any chance to clarify what the board will do before next Tuesday?

David Pollock also announced the endorsements of many past mayors of Moorpark.

These last few weeks he has been running a decent campaign by rolling out impressive endorsements but I wonder if it is too late since many of the absentee ballots have already been returned. We will find out soon.

David Bagwell has been endorsed by State Senator Tony Strickland, County Supervisor Peter Foy. The support of conservative Republican leaders has helped him attract attention but it has also energized the volunteers of other campaigns.

He has been getting a fair amount of letters published in local papers. Some of them in support and some of them attacking him.

The Ventura County Star's Editorial Board gave Nathan Sweet many compliments in their endorsement.

He has been walking precincts to meet voters with a dedicated group of supporters for months. The fires in Santa Barbara caused the precinct walk last weekend to be canceled but he had a robocall to voters and his campaign will be going out again this weekend. Here is his Facebook update from last weekend:

The grassroots campaign he has been running has attracted support from the Chair of the Ventura County Democratic Central Committee Joe O'Neill. To see an email from Joe O'Neill asking people to come out to support Nathan Sweet click on continue reading.

The Simi Valley/Moorpark Democratic club has been organizing volunteers to help his campaign too. Click here for their website. On election day he will have the support of labor, including fellow firefighters to Get Out The Vote (GOTV).

His campaign even attracted the attention of statewide political blog Calitics:

Not all Democratic activists are supporting him though. Long time reader and commenter on my blog Laura Winchester has expressed her support for David Pollock.

This campaign will be interesting to see the power of endorsements, grassroots campaigning, and organizational skills will have on the outcome.

Any predictions?

I know "The Bagwell Letters" sounds like a book title or something. Anyways, David Bagwell's campaign has been doing a decent job getting his letters published in local papers. Here are some recent letters:

Like many in Moorpark, I see "David Bagwell for City Council" signs all over town. It's obvious by the size and number of signs that Mr. Bagwell really wants to be on the City Council. Many residents know that Mr. Bagwell and his wife, Jodi Bagwell, own Bagwell Construction Company here in Moorpark, but I would also like to point out some additional facts residents should know before voting. Jodi Bagwell was appointed to the Moorpark Planning Commission by Janice Parvin in Deccember 2008. So the first question is: Do we see a problem with a husband and wife who own a home construction business having seats on the Planning Commission and the City Council? I also want to point out that the Bagwells were staunch supporters of the failed 1,600 new-home North Park Village development in Moorpark in 2005. That year, Mr. Bagwell wrote letters to the Moorpark Acorn supporting and promoting the North Park development on Feb. 17, April 28, July 15, Aug. 12, and Oct. 14. Anyone can find these letters in the archives online. Some quotes from his letters are, "North Park Village is well-planned and would be an extraordinary addition to Moorpark," and "This is a great project." Could it be that the Bagwells supported North Park because it would have benefited them monetarily? No other resident I know supported this destructive development. I don't want to doubt the motives of citizens who wish to volunteer for their community, and I have nothing personal against the Bagwells, but I do have the following question: Why would a husband and wife who own a construction company in town, that already has one co-owner on the Planning Commission, vie for the other co-owner to be on the City Council? Could it be to help push through developments or construction projects that would benefit Bagwell Construction? I would not be concerned if Mr. or Mrs. Bagwell were on either the Planning Commission or the City Council, but I am very concerned about them having positions on both government bodies. -- Lisa Houston, Moorpark

Click here for the letters to the editor page. The real question is which candidate will do the best job of getting letters published in the last edition of the Moorpark Acorn coming out before election day this Tuesday.

In my continuing online poll candidates Nathan Sweet and David Pollock are close to tied for first with David Bagwell in third. I wonder if some of the other candidates have even bothered to google their names recently. I will have updates from other candidates later this week. If you have any photos of campaign activity, including pictures of campaign signs send them to me and I will post them.

School Board Member David Pollock emailed me his latest mailer. Click on continue reading to see it.

My online poll shows David Pollock making a surge and is behind Nathan Sweet in first and David Bagwell in second.

David Bagwell was recently endorsed by Republican Ventura County Community College District Trustee Bob Huber, Republican County Supervisor Peter Foy, and Republican State Senator Tony Strickland. If you are looking for the choice of the Republican establishment of Ventura County David Bagwell is your choice. At this rate I expect Republican Member of Congress Elton Gallegly to endorse him. Although, with absentee ballots already being mailed in I wonder why these endorsements were announced earlier.

I have not seen any campaign material from Republican Party activist Jon Miller. If you see anything send it in.

Send in any events, campaign literature, or photos of campaign signs you want me to post of any of the candidates.