But let’s ask the obvious question: Did Supervisor Piepho actually benefit from the IEs spent on her behalf? County-wide records for the past 8 elections dating back to 2002 indicate the answer is probably “Yes.” On average 60 percent of vote by mail ballots were returned in the last nine days of the election, with about 20 percent on the last day.

The data support the argument that the IEs in the District 3 race from Tom Koch and Chevron-Tesoro helped seal the deal. On June 3, Piepho’s 3,000 vote lead from absentee ballots alone settled the question early and held up throughout the night despite Houston outpolling her by about 100 votes on election day. These results could also lead one to speculate that Houston’s late Santa Claus piece and the Sheriff’s ballyhooed mailer were not effective messages that late in the cycle.

The same can be said for IEs in the District 5 five-person Supervisor primary where early absentee results for incumbent Glover and Erik Nunn, a better known challenger held up through the night in a race where the IEs kept their powder dry in anticipation of a November runoff.

That said, I am beginning to think of Independent Expenditures as the Super Delegates of free speech in our community. Sure, we’re all equal, but some animals on this farm are more equal than others—especially two-legged creatures orbiting the gravity well of the Contra Costa Council, municipal government, development, labor, or the government-subsidized public-employee-health-education-and-social-welfare-complex.

In essence, if you don’t labor in this cotton field or work for the country cousins, you’re not very equal. Nor powerful. And probably don’t have a government-backed defined benefit pension.

Furthermore, this alignment of big business and big government qua Corporatism has actually engendered a genuinely conservative, reactionary politics, that is given street cred by “progressive” rhetoric from pandering pols working in the big house that perpetuate the status quo in city councils, Martinez, LAFCO, ABAG, Regional Air Boards, and Sacramento.

No wonder then, that local IEs do not wander too far off this plantation, but tend to back pliant incumbents or upstarts, and fake reforms like Prop 99.

“The photograph is obviously staged and manipulated to have voters believe that Mr. Nunn has the support of East County nurses,” Gerber stated. “It couldn’t be farther from the truth.” The CNA recently announced support for incumbent Federal Glover in his reelection bid.

The mailer primarily focuses on support for advanced Breast Cancer treatment and research. Its primary message advocates digital mammograms, education, and access to health insurance.

Yet another panel shows Nunn standing in front of the Medical Center. “The voters need to know that Erik Nunn was fired from his job as a County security guard for harassing and physically attacking a co-worker,” Gerber added.

Snip Snip. Such is local politics.

Despite his touching personal story and good ideas for healthcare treatment and finance reform, like Pentheus in Euripedes’ The Bacchae, it looks like Erik just got whacked, but may still be intact. Snip Snip, indeed.