Tim Redmond

It’s all over but the shouting

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By Tim Redmond
And there was just a huge whoop of happiness when word flashed across the screen at City Hall that Chris Daly has 49.9 percent of the vote, and is virtually guaranteed re-election.

There’s more: The School Board looks like Jane Kim, Hydra Mendoza and Kim-Shree Maufas. John Rizzo has displaced Johnny Carter, adding another badly needed reformer to the Community College Board.

In District 4, it’s still a toss-up — Ron Dudum is narrowly ahead of Ed Jew and Jaynry Mak, and this one will go into overtime.

Newsom gets hammered

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By Tim Redmond

The big news of the night is that Mayor Gavin Newsom is taking a serious beating. The two candidates he invested the most time and political capital in — Rob Black and Doug Chan — are both going down to a clear defeat. In District 4, Chan has pretty much dropped off the map, with Ed Jew, Ron Dudum and Jaynry Mak locked in a close struggle for first place. This race will almost certainly come down to the IRV runoff.

“The mayor may be popular, but he has no coat tails,” Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi told me.

The bigger story is how little impact big money has had in district elections. If Daly pulls it out, and it looks like he will, and Chan loses, which is almost certain at this point, then it’s a sign that downtown really can’t buy district races.

As the news floods in …

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By Tim Redmond

Just got the word that the Democrats are being hammered all over the state, which is terrible news. Prop 90 is ahead by two points, but L.A. hasn’t been counted yet, so maybe there’s hope.

Here in SF, we just got new numbers on D8: Dufty’s a 65.3, which means he’s a clear winner. Alix Rosenthal is at 29.9. That seems to be the only race in which the progressives aren’t winning.

Great News!

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By Tim Redmond

The results are starting to roll in, and it’s a night for local progressives to remember. Chris Daly is well ahead in District 6, with 46 percent of the vote (to 41 percent for Rob Black). The School Board race is shaping up as a progressive victory, too, with Jane Kim in first followed by Hydra Mendoza and Kim-Shree Maufas. Dan Kelly has dropped to fifth place, and it appears his career on the School Board is over.

With the exception of the Parking Tax, all the progressive measures are passing, even Prop. H, the tenant-relocation bill that had a serious campaign against it.

The only downer is that Bevan Dufty is well ahead in District 8.

Time to party

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By Steven T. Jones
D8 challenger Alix Rosenthal have been watching the returns from our home with friends, waiting for some numbers before we headed down to her party at the 500 Club. The first big jump on the numbers puts Dufty at 65, Rosenthal at 30, and Starchild at 5. We’ve always know it would be an uphill battle and it’s not looking good, even though we expect Alix to gain ground as the half of the ballots that remain are counted. Alix has run hard in an exhausting race, but is still holding strong and feeling good about her underdog run at an incumbent with a ton of Establishment support. “It’s been an exhilarating experience We gave him a run for his money and made him a better supervisor for District 8 and the rest of the city,” Alix just told me.

Good news for Daly

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Live report from Tim Redmond

I just spoke by cell phone to a Daly campaign staffer. The campaign has been monitoring the returns at the precinct level, checking the tags as they’re printed out of the machines before they go to City Hall. According to those reports, Daly is 950 votes ahead in the 27 precincts they’ve counted. That’s very good news.

The big news on the School Board is that Jane Kim is now in first place, followed by Hydra Mendoza and Dan Kelly. Kim is almost guaranteed victory. It’s possible that Kelly won’t make the final cut, and three new members will join the board.

More results

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By Tim Redmond

Still very early, but it looks like this:

The leaders in the race for school board are Hydra Mendoza, Jane Kim and Dan Kelly. Interesting that Kelly, an incumbent, is in third for three slots, and that’s just the early votes. This bears watching. For now, though, good news for Jane Kim.

All the incumbents are way ahead in the Community College Board race. That will change, I think.

Big surprises in district four: So far, Ed Jew, who wasn’t even on my radar for this race, is ahead, but it’s very close: Ron Dudum is right behind him. Jaynry Mak and Doug Chan are well behind.

The only proposition that is behind (an d not far behind) is the tenant protection measure, H. It’s trailing 51-48. That’s not bad for early absentees.

first results — Daly looks good

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By Tim Redmond

Well, the very, very early results are in and it looks surprisingly good for Chris Daly. Daly didn’t even run an absentee voters campaign, and the absentees are always conservative, but Black leads Daly just 784 to 700.

Bevan Dufty is well ahead of Alix Rosenthal, 1571 to 513.

By the way, the Dems just took the House.

City Hall, 8 pm

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By Tim Redmond

Not a whole lot going on here yet, no results yet and it will be a while. But nationally, the Democrats have picked up nine in the house. Good news so far.

The race that I find the most interesting is the Rhose Island Senate contest, where Lincoln Chaffee, a popular liberal Republican who opposed the war, lost anyway. People were so mad at Bush and the GOP that they voted against a Republican who had soaring popularity ratings.

Says something.

6:30 pm, Democrats slowly advancing

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By Tim Redmond

Well, so far, with East Coast results trickling in, the Democrats have picked up three seats in the Senate. The GOP has picked up nothing. Nada. Looking good for the Democrats.

The House is a little slower going. So far, the Democrats are up two.

The Guardian slate

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By Tim Redmond

So, the folks at sfist posted an item earlier today about the door-hangers with the Guardian logo and the Guardian slate on them. Sfist got it wrong, then apologized, but I want to clear up any confusion here:

The Guardian doesn’t do slate cards.

We do endorsements, based on our own independent analysis of what’s best for the city, the state and the country. When we’re done, some of the candidates inevitably decide to quote from our endorsements or use our headlines or our logo to promote their campaigns. That’s fine with me — political campaigns use newspaper quotes, headlines and logos all the time. Even if it wasn’t fine with me, I don’t think there’s anything we could do to stop it.

A few years ago, some of the progressive campaigns got together and decided to reprint the entire list of Guardian endorsements as a door hanger “slate card.” Again: Fine with me. Again: Nothing I could do if it wasn’t. Once or twice since then, as a matter of courtesy, the campaigns have called to let me know what they’re doing. I always say the same thing: Please, out of courtesy, make it clear that the card you produce is neither paid for by nor produced by the Bay Guardian. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.

In this case, I guess, there was some confusion, leading some to wonder if we “sold” our endorsements. We take our endorsments more seriously than anything else we do; just ask anyone who’s been through the process or anyone who’s ever worked here. We don’t control what individual campaigns do with our endorsements. But we aren’t involved, make no money off it, don’t control content, don’t decide where the doorhangers go and many times (like this year) didn’t even know it was happening.

Hope that clears things up.

But the good news is …

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By Tim Redmond

It’s a beautiful day, no rain in sight. I was driving my kids to school this morning through the Castro, and Alix Rosenthal was winning the battle of the people with street signs, if that matters. Polling places in Bernal Heights, where there is no supervisorial race, were pretty busy, which means turnout in D6, D4 and D8 should be high, too.

Robert Haaland is predicting Daly 51, Black 39, which would be nice. The reality is that there are more Daly voters than Black voters in the district, and if the Daly campaign can get them to the polls, he’ll win handily.

Under attack

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By Tim Redmond

Well, my friends, once again it’s election day, and once again, our site is under attack. It looks like a serious, well-orchestrated effort aimed at shutting us down just when readers look to us the most for ballot recommendations.

The attack started around 10 last night, and continues to this minute. Fortunately, we were well prepared this time, and with our IT director, Joe Pennant, our web designer, John Adams at eline.com, and our host, Ronnie Enriquez at Infraswitch, all doing heroic work, we’re still up and running.

We have backup plans, so we should be available all day no matter what. But if the site goes down briefly, don’t panic — just check back a few minutes later.

Rob Black’s paid “volunteers”

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By Tim Redmond

Everyone’s having fun with this story: Apparently, the Rob Black campaign in District 6 is paying people $15 an hour to act like volunteers. There’s a great photo on Sfist that sets the scene. Then KPFA sent a reporter to interview Black “volunteers” and got some great stuff. Here’s a partial transcript, thanks to leftinsf.

REPORTER JOSHUA SMITH: On a busy street corner in District 6, campaigners are out in full force. Eric Wilson is wearing an I Black Back Button and standing next to a large poster endorsing the candidate. He says he got involved with the campaign through the Glide Church. But from a glance you would never guess his political stance.

ERIC WILSON: “Allegedly I’m going to be paid fifteen dollars an hour cash. I support Chris Daly, but I’m doing this for Rob Black for the cash. And it’s an oxymoron, but well, you gotta do what you gotta do to eat in this city.”

In other words, Black doesn’t actually have a lot of volunteers, so he’s trying to buy them.

Newsom vetoes foot patrols

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By Tim Redmond

Late on a Friday, at the slowest possible time in the news cycle, when politicians make moves that they hope will get very little media attention, Mayor Gavin Newsom vetoed a plan to require police foot patrols in high-crime areas. That marks a dramatic shift in his position. Just a few days ago, he was prepared to sign the bill.
The veto sets up a fascinating showdown: Are there eight votes on the board to override the mayor? The measure passed 7-3 on its first round, with only Supervisors Aaron Peskin, Michela Alioto-Pier and Sean Elsbernd in opposition and Jake McGoldrick absent. Willl eight votes hold?

Quality of life

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By Tim Redmond
I’m usually not much for political speeches, but Chris Daly has a really nice riff on quality of life in this video of his recent rally at 16th and Mission. His point: It’s easy for people living in million-dollar condos to attack him and complain about the “quality of life” in District 6 (which is downtown shorthand for cracking down on the homeless). But what about the quality of life of all the people who live in residential hotels, who struggle every day, who live on the economic edge? Worth a listen, because it says a lot about why re-electing Daly is such a huge priority.

The worst photo of a politician in 2006 (maybe)

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By Tim Redmond

My friend Ken Neill, the publisher of the Memphis Flyer, sent me what may be the ugliest political photo of the year. The story’s pretty gnarly, too.

Any better nominations?

EDITOR’S NOTES

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› tredmond@sfbg.com
There’s a certain brilliance to the Proposition 90 campaign, perhaps more than the right-wing ideologues who conjured this up even realize. The measure raises a profound, powerful question — and judging from some of the unlikely supporters of this horrible plan, the answer isn’t pleasant.
As we report in this issue (page 20), most people wouldn’t support the measure if they really understood what it meant (no more zoning, no more rent control, no more environmental laws, etc.) But for a lot of Californians and some San Franciscans in places like Bayview–Hunters Point, the real question seems to go like this: do you trust the government to protect you from the private sector — or do you see the government as such a problem, such a threat, so historically untrustworthy that you’ll take your chances with unregulated capitalism?
There are good people, well-meaning people, who are taking the wrong side on this one with potentially terrible consequences, and it’s largely, I think, because they don’t see the public sector as their friend.
I understand how anyone who’s fought redevelopment in the past 40 years can feel that way. Just about everything the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency did in this city, particularly in African American neighborhoods, has been a total disaster. Black support for Prop. 90 is the legacy of generations of corrupt urban politics.
The problem is that Prop. 90, which allows private developers to operate without regulation in urban areas, will be even more of a disaster. And if it passes, it won’t just be Republicans who vote for it. I hope I’m not the only one who finds this deeply frightening. SFBG

Who’s attacking Daly?

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By Tim Redmond

When we last checked in with SFSOS, Ryan Chamberlain, the field director, was insisting that District 6 candidate Rob Black was about to be attacked by Sup. Chris Daly’s big union backers. Poor Rob had been running such an honest, grassroots campaign. I finally heard from Chamberlain about this utterly hypocritical lie; he said he has “no comment,” but went on to press the point that Black was the underdog up against Daly’s dirty machine politics.

So just for the record, I would like to remind everyone just who is on what side in District 6.

For starters, the attack mailers against Daly are plentiful. There’s a partial collection here. Who’s paying for this wave of negative ads?

Well, there’s the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, which is mad at Daly for supporting a living wage for local workers.

There’s the Building Owners and Managers Association, which is mad that Daly supports downtown parking taxes, limits on parking in the most congested areas and overall requirements that the biggest property owners pay their fair share of the tax burden.

There’s SFSOS itself,which is funded by Republican Don Fisher and is against every progressive program in the city.

And “Citizens for Reform Leadership,” which put out a huge, slick attack piece earlier this fall. This is a Fisher-funded group put together by political lawyer and fixer Jim Sutton.

Oh, and the Board of Realtors, the Police Officers Association … all sorts of powerful interests that don’t want someone on the board who can’t be cowed by them.

So don’t buy this crap that Rob Black is just a grassroots candidate up against the “machine.” If the city employee unions come in a the end, it will only be because they see one of their friends under a savage attack and they have no choice but to respond.

Editor’s Notes

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› tredmond@sfbg.com
The San Francisco Examiner reported last week that enrollment in the local public schools is down by another 1,000 students this year, which means, some school board members say, that more sites will have to be closed.
I understand the economic issues — the state pays for education based on average daily attendance, and if fewer kids show up, the school district gets fewer dollars. And I’ll admit I have a dog in this fight: my son goes to McKinley Elementary, a wonderful school that represents everything that’s right about public education in San Francisco — and McKinley was on the hit list last year. It’s a small school; that makes it vulnerable.
I also understand that there are some things the school board can’t control. Families are leaving San Francisco in droves. That’s largely because of the high cost of housing, which is an issue for the mayor and the supervisors (and one that’s going to take a lot more work and resolve to address). So we’re going to lose some students that way.
But we’re also losing a lot of kids to private schools; I know that because I have good friends who’ve chosen that route, mostly because they don’t think the public schools can offer what they want for their kids. This is a perception problem, and it’s something the school board doesn’t have to sit back and accept.
That, I guess, is what really frustrates me — so many people simply saying that as a matter of strategic planning, we need to assume 1,000 fewer students a year will go to the public schools. The district spent around a quarter of a million dollars last year on a public relations office, and almost all the office seemed to do was hide information from the press and promote the career of then-superintendent Arlene Ackerman. Now Ackerman’s gone, and so is her officious flak, Lorna Ho. It’s time to take district PR seriously.
How hard would it be to have one PR staffer dedicated to creating a major citywide ad campaign promoting the public schools? I suspect it would be relatively easy to find a top-flight local ad firm that would work pro bono and not at all impossible to raise money for media (billboards, bus sides, direct mail, print ads, TV, whatever). Lots of prominent people would do testimonials. Set a goal: no enrollment drop-off next year. Before we close any more schools, it’s worth a try.
Now this: Clear Channel, which owns 10 radio stations in San Francisco and does almost no local public affairs programming at all, recently dropped its only decent San Francisco show, Keepin’ It Real with Will and Willie on KQKE, and replaced it with a syndicated feed out of Los Angeles. To listen to most of Clear Channel radio, you’d never actually know that you’re in San Francisco; the giant Texas chain doesn’t care anything about this community.
If you’re sick of this kind of behavior by an increasingly consolidated monopoly broadcast industry (using, by the way, the public airwaves), you’re not alone: Media Alliance, the Youth Media Council, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People will host a hearing on media consolidation in Oakland on Oct. 27, and two Federal Communications Commission members, Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps, will be there to take public comments.
The hearing’s at the Oakland Marriott Civic Center, 1001 Broadway. For more information, go to www.media-alliance.org. SFBG

Chris Daly video ads

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By Tim Redmond

There’s a modest little war going on over low-tech video ads in the District Six race. I think this one, with sock puppets, is my fave. (Thanks to sfist. Then there’s the more serious one, and this strange cat onethat I don’t really understand. But fun to watch.

The big SFSOS lie

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By Tim Redmond

Even by the rather low standards of San Francisco political campaigning, this one is a whopper. SFSOS has been a part of a coalition that has put out a series of vicious attack pieces on Sup. Chris Daly. The pieces, and I think the total is now eight, are nothing but attacks that slam Daly over and over again and urge voters to elect Rob Black. It’s about the worst sort of downtown-funded negative politics I’ve ever seen in town. All of the pieces, of course, were produced by so-called independent expenditure committees — which means they weren’t subject to campaign contribution or spending limits.

Now SFSOS has put out a “breaking news alert” on its email list that — this is true — warns that Daly supporters might (gasp) do an IE of their own. Check out the language, from SFSOS field director Ryan Chamberlain:

“we now have evidence that Daly’s public employee union backers are racing to the printer to fund hit pieces against Rob. Unlike the strictly grassroots campaign that you’ve participated in, this will be classic machine dirty politics: Daly’s union friends will flout the $500 per entity contribution limit by sending thousands of slick last-minute mailers that simply defame Rob.”

Huh? “Unlike the strictly grassroots campaign?” Bullshit, Ryan. Much of the campaign for Black and against Daly has consisted of exactly the sort of “dirty politics” the SFSOS alert is decrying — slick mailers, paid for by groups that flout the $500 contribution limit, seeking to defame Daly.

I called Chamberlain to ask him how he explains this world-class hypocrisy, but I haven’t heard back. I’ll let you know when he calls.

Nancy Pelosi ducks same-sex marriage

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By Tim Redmond

Lord knows, I’ve had my fights with Michael Petrelis, but he seem to have calmed down a bit of late, and his blog is actually interesting, although he made the mistake of Dan Savage too seriously. But he’s nailed Nancy Pelosi for her comments on 60 minutes about same-sex marriage: “Well, that’s an issue that is not an issue that we’re fighting about here.”

Staying the course — huh?

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By Tim Redmond

This is well worth watching, from Daily Kos.

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