Hey, Luke, may I use this on my wordpress blog, if I include a credit line, Luke Thomas, Fog City Journal?

Matt Gonzalez actually called back, between appointments, and added some additional critique to my efforts.

He suggested that even as the Residentialists are becoming bolder here in their push-back against the Developers, that people want a positive message.

I agree. Of course we want development and investment. We want to optimize it. We want to regulate it. We don’t want to strangulate it. (Cue the Bob Dorough…or is that Johnny Mercer?)

If there is a Matt Gonzalez Part 3, I would want to go deeper with him into issues like unions and pension. Jeff Adachi, Matt’s fellow Public Defender, ran for Mayor in 2012 and made a dent, and is pro-worker but also had incites into the need to reform pensions.

I wanted to ask Matt what he thought of George Packer, “The Unwinding” but also “Change The World”. I think of myself as a George Packer populist –okay, he works for The New Yorker, so my populist might be a relative term.

I appreciate that a commentator in the Palo Alto Weekly called me a thinker.

I do try.

I’d definitely rather be knocked out by the bell when my 3 minutes are up than learn to speak in nothing but sound-bites.

I also want to ask Matt about my public safety / militarization / privatization concern and possible platform plank — that I spoke about last night at Council.

I have to admit I was a little concerned he was calling back to qualify his endorsement: I hope over the next 75 days to solidify my platform and win the respect and vote of people like Matt and more importantly the Palo Alto voters.

I also say: it’s not so much getting 3, 4 or 5 “Residentialists” into office as activating 500 or so more people to go to meetings, call up their neighbors, check on old friends, check and balance the momentum, lean in, step up and all that. To wind the part of civic life that perhaps has started to flag.