Newsmax reports that Israel’s President Shimon Peres, in answer to a question, said he would be willing to meet with Iran’s new leader Hassan Rouhani. While no such meeting has been proposed, Peres said he feels no personal enmity toward the Iranian leadership, stating Israel’s differences with them are differences of policy not of personality.
There was no immediate response from Iran to Peres’ impromptu comments.
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U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank, California) is a member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in the House of Representatives. He was quizzed by CNN over the release on Saturday, Dec. 7, from North Korea of 85-year-old accused spy Merrill Newman of Palo Alto, but was as mystified as the rest of the world over the reason for Newman’s incarceration of several weeks and release. Schiff speculated: “They often will grab people to gain attention to get a world leader come and rescue them from North Korea. It may be a shout to the rest of the world that we want you to pay attention to us again and our nuclear program or it may be simply confined to something Mr. Newman said that caused him to be taken off the plane.”
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Now that the La Jolla Christmas Parade has came and went on Sunday, December 8th, La Jolla Town Council member Howard Singer plans to bring his thus-far unsuccessful campaign to change the name of the event to the La Jolla Holiday Parade to the San Diego City Council. He has alerted the media that he plans to make a major presentation at 10 a.m. to the council, an d then hold a news conference at 10:30 a.m. outside City Hall. Both mayoral candidates in the runoff election are members of the City Council: Kevin Faulconer and David Alvarez.
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The most recent poll jointly sponsored by UT San Diego and 10News (KGTV) shows San Diego mayoral candidates Kevin Faulconer and David Alvarez in a virtual dead heat, respectively 47 percent to 46 percent with 7 percent of the voters undecided in the race to fill the position that became open with the resignation of Bob Filner.
In a separate story by Roxana Popescu, the UT reported that Filner has been spending time with his children and grandchildren since his resignation, while trying to understand his 180 degree turn of fortune. Filner is scheduled to be formally sentenced in Superior Court to three months house arrest on Monday on charges of false imprisonment and battery.
The poll broke cross tabulated the preferences by gender, age, race, party affiliation and ideology and found that in most categories neither candidate could claim a majority. But there were a few exceptions. Faulconer is clearly preferred by senior citizens, with 60 percent of those over the age of 65 preferring him. Alvarez is preferred bv 53 percent of the voters in the 35-49 age group. Alvarez is supported by 60 percent of Black voters, and by 48 percent of Hispanic voters, his home base. Faulconer enjoys 50 percent of White voters, and 52 percent of Asian voters.
Political party preferences match the candidates’ registration, with 76 percent of the Republicans preferring Faulconer and 74 percent of the Democrats backing Alvarez. When asked to self-identify as conservative, moderate or liberal, 77 percent of the voters in the conservative category picked Faulconer, and 69 percent of those in the liberal category picked Alvarez.
The poll indicates that among independent voters Faulconer enjoys a 54-36 percent lead with the balance undecided, whereas among self-described moderate voters, the percentage shift to Alvarez’s favor, 48 to 43 percent.
With the election not scheduled until February, and the candidates’ run-off commercials yet to hit the television airwaves, this opinion poll is simply a snapshot of where the candidates stand at the beginning of the race. Pollsters and political insiders will carefully watch how Alvarez and Faulconer trend with the various demographic groups as the campaign progresses.
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The Jewish Citizen is compiled from various sources by San Diego Jewish World editor Donald H. Harrison. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com