Jim Gibson pulls papers to run for VUSD school board

According to the San Diego Registrar of Voters website, Jim Gibson has pulled nomination papers for Vista Unified School District school board ten days ago on July 10. He has not yet filed the papers with the Registrar. He has until August 6 to complete the process. Incumbents seldom pull papers without the intention to run. So we can count on another dirty Jim Gibson school board campaign full of outrageous charges and made up paranoia about other candidates and the fine teachers of VUSD.

By the way thanks to the anonymous poster who alerted me about Gibson pulling papers.

If this election campaign is like the previous Gibson campaigns, we can also count on his friend and rabid hater of the middle class and all unions, Kent Davy, editor of the North Times, providing lots of inches in the North County Times to Gibson's unholy views of public schools and public school teachers. There will be uncritical articles in the main body of the newspaper that Stacy Brandt is forced to write. Davy will also provide as much space on the editorial page as Gibson and his tiny group of supporters ask for. Kent Davy, himself, will write editorials in support of Gibson's candidacy. The opinion pieces and editorials will feature Jim Gibson's made up stories and fantasies of hate while promoting his candidacy. They will not be fact checked for accuracy.

The only question is how much money can Gibson raise with his tired old made up stories from folks ignorant of what he is and what incredible damage he has done to Vista Unified School District and VUSD taxpayers' money. Will the local Republican Party continue to provide Gibson with the thousands and thousands of dollars he has used so unscrupulously in the past to create 'mailers of slander' that he fills our mailboxes with just before the election?

His trade mark final mailer is a hit piece that arrives four or five days before the election with wholly fabricated, but very salacious "Gibson facts" about the good schools and fine teachers of VUSD. These 'mailers of error' come out when there is no time to refute his made up stories. The uniformed VUSD voters are left with his warped and self surviving version of events just before they go to the polls.

I am hoping that Jim Gibson as a three time losers (twice for Oceanside City Council and once for State Assembly) will have a much tougher time getting funds this time around. But Jim is a slippery fellow and very good at finding money and talking folks out of it. Malicious story telling and knowing what his audience wants to hear have been his most successful fund raising attributes in the past campaigns.

We might get lucky again like in Dr. Stephen Guffanti's pathetic and lackluster 2008 campaign and not see much of an effort. In 2008 temper impaired, Guffanti was not able to raise money from anyone. He made almost no effort at all in the campaign, apparently thinking he was going to win on charm. Ha!

Jim Gibson does not have Guffanti's personality issues, the only question is how good are his political contacts still? He burned a lot of bridges with his viscous campaign and 'website of deception' that he used against fellow Republican Diane Harkey in his assembly bid. He lost big and she was elected. Has she forgiven him? Will she get in the way of Jim being able to open the golden pockets of local wealthy Republicans? Only time will tell.

If Jim is fully funded by local Republicans, look forward to robo phone call hell again, with Gibson robo calls by the dozens. In past election campaigns, Gibson as a former Republican Central Committee member has been allowed full access to the local Republican robo phone system. In those campaigns, Gibson has been allow to use and use and use that Republican robophone without limit. I have had as many as three Gibson robo calls in one day.

All we will have to counter Gibson's lavish use of expensive robo-phones our are own real people volunteers to make live phone calls where actual people have conversations with the good voters of VUSD. We may not have Gibson's access to the money and wealth but we have truth on our side. We may not be able to hire political consultants, have unlimited money for malicious mailers, get automated VUSD voter phone lists, and the use of a very expensive, state of the art robo phone system, but we have honest folks whose first priority is fact based education not Gibson style, self-aggrandizement and self promotion.

What we do have that Gibson can never get are people like you who will make the phone calls, walk precincts, stuff envelopes and do all the things that an honest grass roots campaign needs. Let's retire Gibson for good in November of 2010.