Politics Tuesday: Conventional Wisdom

Posted by David Wilmot, dave@oceanchampions.org

2008 is not shaping up to be a good year for conventional wisdom. The New York football Giants beat the record-perfect New England Patriots in the Super Bowl in an upset that can best be measured by the surreal fact that Las Vegas Casinos lost money on betting. One can only hope the Casinos and Vegas find a way to recover.

On a somewhat less viewed but arguably more important stage, the race for the Presidency of the United States is thwarting conventional wisdom. I'm not exactly sure where conventional wisdom can be found or how it is measured, but I am not alone. Pollsters, political handicappers and pundits have been searching in vain this election season. What happened to the good old days when you knew who the kingmakers were. Of course, it's a lot more energizing not knowing the outcome of every race before you pull the curtain closed at the voting booth.

At a meeting last week in southern California it was a foregone conclusion that the California Coastal Commission would approve a proposed toll road connecting Orange and San Diego counties. Yet a funny thing happened after Governor Schwarzenegger threw his support behind the project and personally lobbied each Commissioner.

A record crowd of 3,500 people showed up at the Del Mar Fairgrounds in Southern California (a record for a Coastal Commission hearing not the fairground) to tell the Commission exactly how they felt about the proposed project. Ocean enthusiasts of every stripe including waves of surfers combined with many constituencies to voice their opposition. This predominately volunteer crowd (many of whom took a day off work!) put an exclamation point on their activism. To understand their passion you need to know that the toll road project would cut across a habitat reserve and state park and endanger one of the most hallowed surf breaks in the world - Trestles. Some tremendous grassroots activism by Surfrider Foundation and a number of other groups turned the tide and lifted the "Save Trestles Campaign" to victory. The final vote was 8-2 AGAINST the project . While this battle is not over (they rarely are...), this proves that a people-powered victory can undulate conventional wisdom.