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My book report on The Dave Bieter Podcast -Episodes 1&2: I can& #39;t believe this is legal! #idpol #boisepol https://twitter.com/MayorBieter/status/1199468264759255040?s=20">https://twitter.com/MayorBiet...
Background: At some point the city of Boise bought ~1k worth of recording equipment and tasked a city employee to produce a podcast wherein Mayor Bieter interviews one of his employees. Coincidentally this was released during the run off election. https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/community/boise/article237603599.html">https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/loca...
Dave Bieter has a problem: He lost the general election by almost seven thousand votes. Lauren McLean took a big chunk of his voter base and he& #39;d really, really like to still be mayor.
Dave Bieter has a solution: He can make up that deficit if he can bring old guard conservatives (Brent Coles supporters), lunatics (Wayne Ritchey supporters), and people who wish they lived in Meridian (Rebecca Arnold supporters) into his coalition.
Dave Bieter has a challenge: He needs to find a meaningful policy difference with McLean that can attract conservatives, but he needs to be able to do so without without alienating what& #39;s left of his liberal base.
Coincidentally, Bieter and McLean split on continuing the camping ordinance lawsuit. It& #39;s a nuanced and complex debate that can& #39;t be distilled down to "Beiter wants to jail the homeless" versus "McLean says you must let people do meth on your doorstep"
Pretending that it could though would be conservative catnip. If Bieter were to cynically try to do that, he& #39;d have to be sure that the attacks and insinuations didn& #39;t come from him directly. https://www.idahopress.com/news/local/mailer-paid-for-by-developers-accuses-mclean-of-supporting-homeless/article_c2f4f2a2-deca-5b4d-9849-4efd61ac830e.html">https://www.idahopress.com/news/loca...
Also, he& #39;d need to reassure his voters that he cares about homeless people. Coincidentally, with no coordination with his campaign, here& #39;s the Mayor Dave podcast, first topic: Homelessness. Second topic: Homelessness.
The podcast begins with some public domain jazz piano and baby I hear the blues a callin& #39; tossed salad and scrambled eggs. https://chirb.it/amtK1C ">https://chirb.it/amtK1C&qu...
Right off the bat you can tell that Mayor Dave has a "one take" executive philosophy. He welcomes us to "the beat goes on, Bieter on Boise, or some undisclosed name."
The Bieter Goes On would have been a superior name. https://chirb.it/nbazPp ">https://chirb.it/nbazPp&qu...
The Bieter Goes On would have been a superior name. https://chirb.it/nbazPp ">https://chirb.it/nbazPp&qu...
A professional producer would probably have made him record it again, but Mayor Dave is the boss. I& #39;d say there& #39;s unspoken tension between employee and employer here, but guest/employee Wyatt Schroeder makes the subtext text. https://chirb.it/hzvAN1 ">https://chirb.it/hzvAN1&qu...
I& #39;m not shitting on @wvschroeder at all here. He& #39;s a really good guest. He& #39;s knowledgeable, articulate and his passion shines through. Listen to him talk about how even offering help can be traumatic and how that informs the city& #39;s approach. https://chirb.it/FvNreC ">https://chirb.it/FvNreC&qu...
If the actual point of the Mayor Dave podcast was showcasing the smart people working for the city and letting them geek out about topics near and dear to them, that would be fantastic. But that& #39;s not really the medium or the message.
The medium is a boss Bieter joint. He knows what Schroeder is going to say. It& #39;s not like the dude is going to criticize city policy with his boss in the room. Beiter controls the questions and has editorial control over the answers. He& #39;s cosplaying journalism.
And because he& #39;s pretending to seek knowledge his questions seem weird. When he asks "isn& #39;t it true that some homeless people just don& #39;t like rules? he& #39;s probably throwing a softball, but what if he legit doesn& #39;t know? https://chirb.it/gvBn84 ">https://chirb.it/gvBn84&qu...
It also leads to some awkward moments. Like when Schroeder talks about being surprised that nothing was being done when he first got to Boise in 2015. Bieter had been doing nothing for over a decade at that point. https://chirb.it/4st2qH ">https://chirb.it/4st2qH&qu...
Regardless, it& #39;s just Dave the Mayor, not Dave the Candidate, using this official vehicle to say "we care about the homeless." But that message is secondary to what he& #39;s really trying to convey. "I, your incumbent care about the homeless. Stick with me."
He steers the conversation to breaking up Cooper Court so he can deliver his stump speech: "ordering the police to displace the homeless was really hard for me." One wonders how he slept at all in his warm bed. https://chirb.it/h65e6k ">https://chirb.it/h65e6k&qu...
He& #39;s also not above putting his subject matter expert hat back on and claiming, without attribution, that not being able to cite people for camping is why homeless people come to Boise. Oddly enough, Schroeder lets this point drop. https://chirb.it/ADJL91 ">https://chirb.it/ADJL91&qu...
This makes me question how faux-earnest his "well aren& #39;t there bad homeless people that make their own rules?" question was.
For what it& #39;s worth, I don& #39;t think that Bieter has been a bad mayor on housing issues. New Path Housing is a legit good thing. Boise has made significant progress in the five years that Bieter has cared about this.
I& #39;m just insulted that he wants us all to pretend that this isn& #39;t what it is: an infomercial for the incumbent mayor.
And that would be fine if this were a campaign thing, paid for with campaign money and campaign staff time. But it& #39;s not. It& #39;s propaganda that co-opts city employees doing their civic jobs and funded by tax-payer money. That sucks.
I suspect we didn& #39;t hear this during the general because some adult realized it was wrong. They dropped it now because doing the right thing is, coincidentally, for losers.
In conclusion, the Bieter campaign should reimburse the city for the equipment and the city staff time. QTIYD. #idpol #boisepol
Correction: it should be "Turn the Bieter round."
For example, this rube bought in https://twitter.com/JerryGibbs001/status/1200471233948573696?s=19">https://twitter.com/JerryGibb...
