The suspense is killing us -- in the District 6 election! This week's episode: Everybody Hates The Absentees.
Okay, time for a new District 6 post! We're going to try putting updates on the top of the post again, as news comes in.
--Update -- we're busy at work so no commentary, but here's the latest numbers from sfgov.org.
MEMBER, BOARD OF SUPERVISORS DIST. 6
VOTE FOR 1
CHRIS DALY . . . . . . . . . . 6,313 48.47
ROB BLACK . . . . . . . . . . 5,191 39.86
MATT DRAKE . . . . . . . . . . 487 3.74
VILIAM DUGOVIC. . . . . . . . . 269 2.07
DAVY JONES . . . . . . . . . . 268 2.06
MANUEL JIMENEZ, JR. . . . . . . . 234 1.80
GEORGE DIAS. . . . . . . . . . 173 1.33
ROBERT JORDAN . . . . . . . . . 89 .68
WRITE-IN. . . . . . . . . . . 0
--Beyond Chron has an article up about the low-income housing perspective on the D6 race, and praises the Daly campaign's organized SRO outreach, which got 70% of their identified Daly supporters to the polls. Beyond Chron also confirms that the notorious 37%-31% Black over Daly poll was taken over the telephone (which underestimated Daly's non-phone-owning base). And.... extra bonus! Suzeeqzee: they also reveal what Robert Haaland was doing on his vacation!
--There's talk on the SFWall about a Daly recall.
--Fog City Journal and Sarah Daly's speech make it into the New York Times. They forgave her, because they noted she had two empty champagne glasses in hand at the time.
--Also, we're kind of curious what you guys think on these next questions. What do you guys think was Daly's best/worst move in this race? What do you think were Rob Black's? And what role do you think blogs and readers of blogs will have in future local elections? We've got our thoughts on these topics -- which we'll share after you guys share yours!
After the jump -- Gavin's betrayal of Rob, and Rob Black's letter to his supporters. We're trying not to take up too much space on the front page of the site!
--Gavin Newsom's a hater! He's spinning it now that he never thought Rob Black would win. He seemed so enthusiastic before! But now Newsom says, "No one thought Rob Black could win except Rob Black." Cold. Brrrr.
--We got the following letter from Rob Black's campaign:
Dear Friends,First of all, thank you for supporting my candidacy for Supervisor. I am honored by your support, and I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart.
I'm writing to let you know that over 5,000 absentee ballots cast in the election for District Six Supervisor have not yet been counted by the Department of Elections.
It is highly likely that once the ballots are counted, no candidate for Supervisor in District Six will have received over 50% of the votes, and so the outcome of the race will be determined by instant-runoff voting.
This process may take several days. I will keep you updated as soon as new information comes in.
Thanks again for your support.
Sincerely yours,
Rob Black
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5,000 absentee ballots -- that's about 33% of the total ballots cast! Absentees always break moderate-to-conservative. If 75% of those 5,000 (3,750) go for Black, and all of the remainder go for Daly, that'll put Black at about 8,000 and Daly at 6,750.
I'd suggest that Daly would be losing sleep over that possibility, but nah -- he's too full of himself for that.
And if people voted the way I did straight across the board for one candidate, then I'm sure Daly will pull this one.
Well i am not yet sure about it, but i also do think that Daly will take it.
Three years ago in our Mayoral election, the Chronicle ran this article:
"ABSENTEE VOTES LIKELY TO TIP THE BALANCE IN CLOSE RACE
...More than 60,000 San Franciscans already had voted before the weekend, and thousands more absentee ballots were expected to arrive at City Hall by election day. If the form holds from the Nov. 4 election, most of those absentee votes will be going to Newsom. A poll done last week by SEIU Local 250, a health care workers union that hasn't endorsed either Newsom or Supervisor Matt Gonzalez in the mayor's race, showed an overwhelming number of absentee voters favoring Newsom...
One minute after the polls closed at 8 p.m., the city released the absentee votes that already had been counted. That first tick gave Newsom 23,302 votes, or more than 52 percent of the 44,000-plus absentee votes cast early. Gonzalez collected 4,390 votes, just under 10 percent...
By the time all the election day votes were counted, the margin had narrowed to 41.42 percent for Newsom and 20.11 percent for Gonzalez, with a citywide turnout of 39 percent. But when the 30,335 provisional votes and absentees turned in on election day were counted, the turnout had jumped to 45 percent and Newsom had widened his lead to 41.92 percent versus 19.57 percent for Gonzalez...
'In the Nov. 4 election, the absentee votes were more moderate and conservative than the votes cast at the polls,' said David Lee of the Chinese American Voter Education Committee...
'I believe at least 30 percent of the vote in the runoff will be by absentee ballot,' said David Binder, a veteran San Francisco pollster. 'It could go as high as 40 percent.'"
(source: http://tinyurl.com/yxwcmd )
To recap:
1a. Absentee votes made up about one third of all votes cast in the 2003 race between Newsom (Back's biggest backer) and Gonzalez (one of Daly's closest allies).
1b. Absentee votes make up about one third of all cast votes in this race as well.
2a. In the first release of absentee votes (those counted by the time the polls closed), Newsom got about five times as many absentee votes as did Gonzalez, and of the remainder of absentee votes, more than twice as many went to Newsom as Gonzalez.
2b. If we see that pattern here -- and, given the similarities between the two races, there's no credible reason to doubt it -- we're going to see 5,000 absentees, with twice as many going to Black as to Daly.
Ergo: Ian is right. Black will win. Better get started on that conspiracy theory speech -- er, concession speech -- Mr. Daly.
i read your blog and daly's and several others last night while trying to console myself over our apparent loss to the tenderloin, tender-knob and south van ness crowd. it's obvious to me that daly' team did a good job of convincing folks that black was a republican (not true) and that he had experience not worth tossing (hard to say if his methods make him worth keeping). anyone with the ability to articulate a rational thought without using profanity could be cast as being more conservative than daly and that is not a smart way to judge who best can serve this rapidly changing district. i'd say this is the last time a supervisor that seems so divisive and so dead set on being anti-property owner and business will represent us. the 5400 votes he got were 600 less than last time. the 4500 votes black got were all new residents of the district which will become one of the newer and more significant tax bases of the city in the next 5-10 years.
Interesting theory about the absentee ballots - question is, did Black fund an absentee ballot operation as part of his campaign? Was it a major part of his GOTV operation?
Because for those with dim memories, Newson didn't win b/c of the absentee ballots by fairy magic. He won them by such a large margin because he spent a lot of money on an absentee ballot operation (remember, his downtown buddies and out of town rich buds donated MAD cash to his campaign.) It was a core part of his electoral strategy - he targeted "his" voters and got absentee ballots to them and then made sure they completed them and mailed them in.
That's also why absentee ballots over the last several election cycles break strongly in the favor of the conservative candidate. The GOP, for example, has made absentee ballot operations a part of their overall GOTV operation, having learned to microtarget their outreach around it. Dems caught up this cycle and the whole "absentee ballots always break conservative" rule of thumb no longer is a truism.
So, as for the D6 race and the ballots putting Black over Daly - don't hold your breath.
Uh...
THINK for a minute (hard for you Daly haters, I'm sure) who might vote absentee in D6. They're not your typical, conservative voters from WOTP.
If anything, Daly will be favored in the absentee vote. He certainly was when my partner voted for him that way.
And knowing my neighbors, that's how they voted as well.
For those of you not paying attention, progressive/Left voters have been increasingly voting absentee in SF, thanks in part to a campaign launched several years ago by progressives to get their folks to vote in greater numbers.
...I'm sorry?....what was it that Dave said earlier?
Oh, yes.
"Suck it."
Or in the words of Sarah Daly: "_____________"
"THINK for a minute (hard for you Daly haters, I'm sure) who might vote absentee in D6. They're not your typical, conservative voters from WOTP. If anything, Daly will be favored in the absentee vote."
You're delusional. And thousands of Daly supporters would vote absentee...uh, why?
Because they knew they would be out scoring some crack on election day?
Because that was Free Cheese Day at the park?
Because it was Tuesday, and Tuesday is bathing day?
Show me even one example of absentees breaking towards the far Left.
I repeat: you're delusional.
I have seen the error of my ways. I am in danger of losing my San Francisco values. My only hope is to petition St. Christopher for the salvation of my SoMa soul. I will offer up three Hail Sara's as my penitence.
AND ANOTHER THING!
As far as China Basin and the area around Mays Field is concerned: while it's true that there are a lot of new and expensive housing developments down there that may favor a future conservative/corp shill candidate, there is also a proliferance of high-density affordable housing being built that likely will house young, working-class straight couples, college students at UCSF, gay couples, and people who tend to vote to the left of center.
Any future candidate will have to actively court this new constituency, but it's not a sure bet that they'll vote for a "Rob Black" type of candidate over a Daly one.
Since I live in the neighborhood, you can be sure I'll do what I can in the next 4 years to get out the vote for a real progressive in D6, not a phony, anti-tenant lawyer who carpetbagged his way onto Treasure Island for the election.
kevin, go back to sucking it so the rest of us that don't think the academy of art is an accredited 4 year institution...
wind bag!
here's why the rest of us understand how destructive and irresponsible daly really is:
http://www.examiner.com/a-388479~Restaurant_owners_sue_S_F_.html
it's called thinking about your actions before you waste what little money we have writing bogus legislation that makes you feel good
lets start the recall campaign
enough is enough!
Just a question -- why would the day-of absentees break any differently than the early absentee count, where Black was only 4% ahead? (with 784 for Black and 700 for Daly?)
Also -- is anyone going to answer our question about the bests and worsts of the Daly and Black campaign? Please? I really am dying to know what other D6-watchers think!
A recall? Whatever - never gonna happen. The Dem machine won't stand for it. Newsom will make nice with Daly and it will be same as it ever was. Talk about delusional.
And just because a business lobby group sues over legislation doesn't mean they are right - or do you think the Ammiano's of the world were right when they sued to stop Care Not Cash? How's that petard?
Rita:
Best of Black: Um, he had nice signs. And his clothes fit.
Worst of Black: No lips. And nobody bought his whole "I'm a progressive b/c I worked for Carter before I became a corporate whore" schtick.
Best of Daly: Gotta be the beads. And some of those videos his supporters put up on YouTube.
Worst of Daly: Dude has GOT to learn how to use an iron. Oh, and why didn't Daly's camp print up any "That's How I Roll" tshirts?!?!?!?
Yeah TenderNob, go on portraying us as "crack heads" who never bathe and want something for nothing.
This is why you can't win elections.
Again, SFist is beseiged by the trolls and cranks that frequent Free Republic whenever the subject of Daly come up.
Can I share a store with you? I happened to be a volunteer in Daly's office during the brouhaha that followed when Chris replaced Willie's crones on the PUC with environmentalists.
You know what? I answered many, many calls from all over the city thanking Chris and telling me how proud they were of him and how they appreciated the fact that someone could stand up to Willie. The amount of praise was, by far, overwhelming.
And then there were the cranks like you.
They were few and far between, but basically their line went:
"Good morning, Chris Daly's office."
"F*ck YOU!!!"
(hangs up)
So it's not that we don't know you're out there, but it's fair to assume that you guys cannot function beyond a gut reaction/knee-jerk fashion and that you can't even form a formidable opposition without tons of funding from the GGRA and the Gary Delagnes AA Support Group - let alone a coherent sentence.
I cannot believe that Newsom sold out his buddy like that - but whatever.
I also think that expecting a giant majority of absentee ballots to be entirely dedicated to Rob Black is a little, uh, overly optimistic, but in the interests of fair elections, I'm really happy that he's not conceeding or anything just yet.
Until Daly gets those last .44% of votes he doesn't have 50% and is NOT the winnder. We shall see...
um, the winner, not the winnder - I have no personal knowledge of what winnders are, exactly.
Kevin wrote:
"Yeah TenderNob, go on portraying us as 'crack heads' who never bathe and want something for nothing. This is why you can't win elections.
[blather snipped for brevity]
So it's not that we don't know you're out there, but it's fair to assume that you guys cannot function beyond a gut reaction/knee-jerk fashion and that you can't even form a formidable opposition without tons of funding from the GGRA and the Gary Delagnes AA Support Group - let alone a coherent sentence."
I'll pit the coherence of my sentences against yours any day, Kevin, as well as our relative abilities to comprehend posts.
The biggest Daly lie, echoed by so many of the True Believers, is that the only people that are against him are rich Republican business owners and landlords. I'm a renter, living in the Tenderloin where the vast majority of people on the street outside are indeed crackheads who seldom bathe and want something for nothing. These people have been courted, coddled and enabled by Daly for the past 6 years, and they love him for it. Not coincidentally, Daly refuses to do anything about the crimes they commit and the way that they bring down the quality of life in our neighborhood.
That is the proof of the selfishness and myopia of Daly's fans: they refuse to acknowledge that Daly has never served the needs of all of the neighborhoods in his District. As long as he can claim to be "the conscience" of the Left, it doesn't seem to matter to otherwise intelligent people that Daly is an abject failure as a representative of his constituents. He's as patrimonious and as demagogic as Bush or any other pol on the Right. In the words of Harry Truman: "He's an SOB, but at least he's our SOB."
And as for being incapable of "forming a formidable opposition" -- well, I started and helped run a blog with a few friends, to act as a watchdog of Daly's actions. I personally made up 400 flyers (on my own dime) critical of the way that Daly has abandoned our neighborhood, and I handed them out on my own time. Not perhaps "formidable", but at least independently dedicated towards what I see as an opportunity for positive change. I didn't ask for or get any help from any candidate or group, nor did I donate money to any. How many of Rob Black's detractors did the equivalent? How many of you Daly-heads here did anything outside of parroting the Daly rhetoric, or maybe volunteering with Team Daly?
wow what a bunch of whiny bitches the rob black people are. love how newsom sold out his bestest buddy in d6. once again it's mayor newsom who has no coattails, whose support means squat, and who sells out his own people under fire. oh and his support means NOTHING for any candidate who gets it. Just ask Doug Chan (another total loser supported by SF SOS and the GOP business clan)
will someone please retire this slick restauranteur and get us a real mayor who does his job, not 20 year old hostesses
read it and weep, anty daly biotches!!!!! ha ha ha ha ha! go freep yourselves!!!
Rita asked
"Also -- is anyone going to answer our question about the bests and worsts of the Daly and Black campaign? Please? I really am dying to know what other D6-watchers think!"
Worst for Black: Newsom's post facto betrayal.
Best for Black: keeping Daly on the defensive by focusing on Daly's record, rather than playing into Daly's campaign's smears.
Worst for Daly: Bead-Gate -- the fact that Daly's green beads are made in a sweatshop in China by girls working 12-18 hour days and getting paid 10-cents an hour. When he was called on this, Daly quietly stopped wearing the beads himself, but never asked his supporters to stop buying or wearing them. So typical of his hypocrisy.
Best for Daly: still waiting for it. Maybe a gracious concession speech (I know -- I'm dreaming).
Tendernob,
Whatever anger you have, it's really unfortunate that you've devoted it towards trashing Chris and the other residents of D6. If you truly are concerned about the people on the street and about "quality of life" issues, your beef lies with Newsom, not Daly. It's Newsom, and his predecessor Brown, who've failed the citizens of D6 time and time again by vetoing programs to help the poor and by introducing "feel good" but meaningless initiatives like Care Not Cash, which has resulted in zero improvement for getting people off the streets. And really, looking at this situation from another angle, the TenderNob has been a place for the fringe of society ever since it was the first Gay neighborhood in SF. Trannys, hustlers, gays, and other elements that have been outcasts of society have alway called parts of the TenderNob home - long before yuppies like you moved in.
So is this the element you want to clean up? Is this why you hate Chris so much?
I wonder.
I want people with mental health and substance abuse problems to get help as well, but again, this is as much the responsibility of Newsom and the other 11 Supervisors as it is Dalys.
You remind me of people who would call Daly's office and complain about the Blue Angels.
Hey you Daly supporters -- regular progressives who actually live in D6 can and do support Black. I contributed what I could to Black's campaign by walking my precincts and reminding our list of supporters to get out to the polls to vote. To equate Black supporters with Republicans and Free Republic knuckle-draggers is beyond ridiculous.
As far as the questions go? Daly's best (and worst) move was potraying Black as a Republican. Real best move was scoring endorsements.
Black's best move was his house parties. Worst was voter fatigue from the bazillion mailers from his cadre of Daly haters -- thus getting tagged as a Republican (doh!)
The blogs are just inside baseball. The majority of people have no clue this even exists.
Oh and was the Daly party bus idea as lame as it sounds?
Geez, can't we all just get along? I'm so sick of all the hatred in this election. I wish Sarah Daly hadn't cussed out the GGRA, but I would've done a lot worse than that if they were trashing the love of my life. I had a hard enough time keeping composed in the face of the spiteful rudeness I received on the streets while holding a Daly sign.
For people who are upset about Daly being rude and abrasive, it's amazing how rude and abrasive some of them were to us volunteeres. I really hope both sides can put the hate behind us and focus on improving District 6. I like the idea someone posted yesterday about town hall meetings with Daly, but I'm afraid that people wouldn't remain civil.
I agree with Rita about the break on the rest of the absentees. If it follows the initial 784-700 ratio, Black would pick up 340 votes out of the 6000, leaving him still 800 short. That would mean he'd need to get something like 80% of the 2nd choice votes. Not gonna happen.
Black's best move: Getting the Mayor to play politics with police funding to make it look like Daly was obstructing the police. Sleazy, but effective. Seemed like I talked to people about that on the streets at least once a day.
Black's worst move: I agree with David Binder, they never should've released those early poll results. Progressives were scattered around town working on other campaigns and taking a Daly victory for granted before that. With three weeks to go, we all circled the wagons around Daly, and it was an awesome and beautiful sight to see. The most diverse and exciting campaign I've ever worked on. Everyone said it was like the Gonzalez campaign.
Daly's best move: 6 years of being a rock for progressives and low-income and working class people on the Board. When he needed help, the people delivered. How else do you explain 500 volunteers on Tuesday?
Daly's worst move: I think his temper has been exaggerated in the media, but I won't deny that he could deal with people he disagrees with better. There's a lot of hate for him in the district (mostly male, virtually all white), and I think he should work with the Mayor and city departments to get more City resources addressing the symptoms of the the problems (piss, poo, drugs, crimes) while still doing what he does for the root causes (housing, job training, foot patrols, rehab, etc).
I think the sore Black supporters could use some cheese with their whine.
Kevin wrote:
"Whatever anger you have, it's really unfortunate that you've devoted it towards trashing Chris and the other residents of D6. If you truly are concerned about the people on the street and about 'quality of life' issues, your beef lies with Newsom, not Daly. It's Newsom, and his predecessor Brown, who've failed the citizens of D6 time and time again by vetoing programs to help the poor and by introducing 'feel good' but meaningless initiatives like Care Not Cash, which has resulted in zero improvement for getting people off the streets."
Spoken like a true Daly-head: 75% bullshit and 25% appeal to sympathy.
Fact: Newsom has been Mayor for half as long as Daly's been Supe. Daly has had 6 years to have a positive impact on the litter, crime and other issues facing the working poor and working class residents north of Market. He's done NOTHING for us. Newsom's had 3+3 years, but he's been the first person to have a positive impact in homelessness in SF since, well, ever.
Fact: the homeless policies of the past 20 years have been failures, and the cash disbursement system was a mess; even now, no one knows how much waste there's been, since there's no standardized system for tracking them or the expenditures, nor any oversight. A lot of recipients spent their money on booze and drugs rather than housing or food. SF's taxpayers spent about $200 million a year on homeless services -- more per capita than any other city in the US -- before Daly ever took office, and yet the number of homeless grew over the years.
Fact: CnC has put more than a thousand chronically homeless people into permanent homes. It also provided free bus tickets out of town to more than a thousand others. For the first time in two decades, the number of chronically homeless in SF who are actually willing to accept help and get off the streets, has gone dramatically down. If that's your idea of "meaningless" and "zero improvement for getting people off the streets", then I'll take two, please.
"And really, looking at this situation from another angle, the TenderNob has been a place for the fringe of society ever since it was the first Gay neighborhood in SF. Trannys, hustlers, gays, and other elements that have been outcasts of society have alway called parts of the TenderNob home - long before yuppies like you moved in."
Yuppie, eh? Let's see:
Chris Daly -- owns new 3 bedroom condo, salary of $118,000 a year, owns new car (a BMW, I've heard)
Me -- has rented a 1 bedroom apartment in 100 year-old building with absentee landlord, for past 10 years, self-employed and earns about $20,000 a year, doesn't own car
Now, who's the "yuppie" again?
"So is this the element you want to clean up? Is this why you hate Chris so much?"
I don't "hate Chris". I think he's a good advocate for the poor, but I think he's a terrible elected official. Just like I cannot accept a non-representative politician on the Right, I refuse to turn a blind eye to it on the Left.
"You remind me of people who would call Daly's office and complain about the Blue Angels."
And you have a problem with that for what reason? Because the Blue Angels contribute in such a positive way to our quality of life? I don't think that San Francisco needs to have fighter jets screaming overhead every year. It frightens young children and pets (and immigrants from Vietnam, who I see cringe every time they fly over), and it's tremendously dangerous. If you don't believe me, Google "airshow+jet+crash" and note how often those jets crash and kill dozens of innocent bystanders.
Any other stupid claims I can shoot down?
The best that I can say really came from all sides in this campaign:
I hope a lot of people realize that it has gotten us who live in D6 together to talk about the issues that plague us in our district.
But how do you get the people who are responsible for pee,poo,drugs, and so forth, not to do these things in our neighborhoods? Since this has a negative effect on a healthy environment.
What I'm trying to say is we know the issues, what do we do next? I could care less on whether or not who you like or don't like.
The worse is:
that a lot of people want to nothing but complain.
Not even to come up with some solutions.
I think Black had a couple really bad moves:
First, he let SFSOS and GGRA essentially own the dirty streets issue. It made it easy to ignore, cause nobody believes either of those groups cares about anybody's interest but their own. Second, I also agree the release of the poll was a huge mistake. It really caused a deluge of supporters into the campaign.
I think the best move he made was letting the aforementioned organizations do the dirty work, so he could come out looking clean(ish).
The worst thing Daly did wasn't an election issue as such. He's pretty clearly perceived as not caring about clean streets and petty crime. I think that there's not really anything he could have done about those issues directly, but he certainly could have been more of an advocate for the folks whose main concern it was.
The best thing Chris did was be Chris, really. When it came down to it, folks came out of the woodwork to save San Francisco, from SRO residents to fancy-pants lawyers. I saw people from that campaign I've not seen since Chris's first run in 2000. And theywe did not come out to help because the Mayor told us to, because we wanted to lash out at the guy pissing on our street, or to secure a high-paying city job. We came out because on the issues that are important to us Chris is there.
I totally disagree. I think that most of the residents of D6 who are disenchanted with Daly (or never enchanted in the first place) do know what they want, and a lot of them have offered solutions. Here's what I've heard again and again from folks around the North of Market portion of D6:
1. Real housing for established San Franciscans who are homeless-of-last-resort. That means more housing being built, as well as oversight and fiscal responsibility from those doling out the entitlements. Daly fought against CnC, even though it was the will of the majority of citizens of SF, when instead he should've been wise enough to work with them. Not a skill he seems to have.
2. Reasonable short-term help and temporary housing for the homeless-of-the-moment. But not an open wallet that can be drawn from for the rest of their lives. Daly has (and will always) fight against any kind of realistic limitations on the opportunists who are ruining the social safety net for everyone. So, food, shelters and job training for people who have been here a while, and bus tickets back home for the arrivistes.
3. Cops on the sidewalk. Despite the lies from Daly and his supporters, this is a staffing issue, and staffing is a budget issue (thus, under Daly's purview), as well as being a recruiting issue (which needs coalition effort). And Chris Daly has NEVER led the fight for this. He has barely even mentioned it over the past 6 years until just before the elections.
4. Vigorous prosecution of low-level and nuisance crimes. There is absolutely no reason why residents should be expected to put up with rampant public drug use, discarded needles, aggressive panhandling, petty theft, tagging, street people using the sidewalk as their toilet, etc.
This is where there's plenty of blame to go around. The Police are reluctant to make arrests because they know that the DA will throw out most of the cases. And Daly's done nothing to address this issue, such as providing leadership for Neighborhood Watch programs. In Daly's mind, cops/neighborhood watch = the enemy.
5. More public toilets. Not necessarily $200,000 automated ones, but functional, safe and drug-free ones. Again, Daly doesn't seem to care about the issue.
6. More secure trashcans, emptied often, and more sidewalk cleaning. This makes such a difference. Daly's supporters have blamed this on DPW and the Mayor, but in fact, Daly could've addressed it by bringing in a private contractor to do the job, as his role as Chair of the B&FC allows. But he simply doesn't care about the issue.
7. More opportunities for children to do things after school. We have three "parks". Boeddecker Park is a junkie jungle, and the other two pocket parks are maximum security playgrounds about as appealing as a McDonalds at 7am. We have a number of derelict buildings that could be torn down or renovated and turned into educational or recreational facilities. Where's Daly's leadership on this?
One of the largest groups in my neighborhood is the Vietnamese community (about 2,500 of 'em) -- an immigrant, working class, discriminated-against minority. What have they been asking Chris Daly for for the past 6 years? Safe, clean streets, and safe places for their children to play and go to school. Has he delivered? Not a bit. But who gets held up as being against Daly in the North of Market part of D6? Republicans, landlords, business owners. But Vietnamese people outnumber those people by a huge margin, and yet Daly has utterly failed those people's needs.
"We came out because on the issues that are important to us Chris is there."
unless those issues happen to include not having some crack whore taking a dump in your doorway and leaving her used rig for you to step on when you leave for work in the morning, or being panhandled and mugged on your way home
Funny how everything the Daly-haters complain about Daly not doing is more like 10% under Daly's control and 90% the mayor's responsibilty. But who gets the blame from the Daly-haters? Not Mayor McDreamy. They're too busy lining up to wash Gavin's balls.
You want more cops on the street? Why hasn't the Mayor done anything about this? (Not "talk about doing", but actually, DOING.)
You want cleaner parks? Why the fuck hasn't Mayor's Parks and Rec department done anything? Oh right, he's too busy blowing the Parks and Rec Dept.'s budget on renovating golf courses.
Hire private contractors to do DPWs job? Do you really have ANY idea how big cities work? You don't get away with, as public official, going around DPW. You screw those guys - and their union - and you'll wake up the next morning to find that ALL the public trash cans have dissappeared and none of the traffic lights work.
So, the Police not making arrests is the fault of the DA and Daly, but not the Mayor? What. Ev. Er.
Public toilets? I agree we need them - problem is, the system has never really worked in this country. I've seen, firsthand, multiple cities in the U.S. fall in love with these things on a visit to Germany or France, and then try to make them work here. Problem is, they just don't hold up to the kind of abuse they get in this country from street folk/drug addicts. In nice European countries with strong social welfare systems its great - but in the every man for himself U.S. with its obscene homeless problem, doesn't work.
Finally, yes, Daly SHOULD do more to address quality of life issues in his district. No reason he can't continue his advocacy for the less fortunate AND push QoL issues.
tendernob what are you doing today about the poo,pee,drugs and so forth.
what are you doing for the community other than bad mouthing on a blog.
QoL is not a progressive vs. moderate issue; Mirkarimi has done a lot with the City Attorney and so forth to reverse the neglect around the Western Addition. Daly supported the foot patrol initiative, and he increased police funding, but I agree he could do more on the ground.
Dave wrote:
"Funny how everything the Daly-haters complain about Daly not doing is more like 10% under Daly's control and 90% the mayor's responsibilty."
Dave, do you have ANY FUCKING IDEA what the whole point of the word "district" in "District Supervisors" is? No, *really*; I'd like to know.
Here's the answer (I recommend jotting it down for future reference): it's to have an elected representative in City Hall to be able to respond to the specific needs of a specific neighborhood or group of neighborhoods. D2 doesn't have 50 people a day crapping on the sidewalk, or 100 used heroin needles scattered around, or 10 cars' windows busted in every night, so Supervisor Alioto-Pier doesn't have to try to come up with a creative way to deal with those issues (nor does the Mayor.) Instead, she gets to find creative ways to solve problems with off-leash dog areas and car parking permits and someone who wants to paint their Victorian bright pink. That's the whole point of District elections.
D6, OTOH, does have those previously mentioned problems. It's a district issue, to be handled by a district Supervisor. But Daly has always acted like the ONLY constituents in D6 that matter to him are his inner Mission pals and the homeless. That's how arrogant and discriminatory he is.
You want more cops on the street? Why hasn't the Mayor done anything about this? (Not "talk about doing", but actually, DOING.)
Because, you nitwit, the Mayor's control over the Police is largely limited to choosing their Chief. As I have had to point out too damned many times, the ONLY way to get more cops into the Tenderloin -- on foot or in cars -- is to hire more. That's a budget issue. Who is the Chair of the Budget and Finance Committee? That would be Chris Daly. The guy who tried to remove the funding for the surveillance camera program that hundreds of residents and businesspeople in the Tenderloin had asked for for years.
"You want cleaner parks? Why the fuck hasn't Mayor's Parks and Rec department done anything? Oh right, he's too busy blowing the Parks and Rec Dept.'s budget on renovating golf courses."
Actually, Daly sits on the Neighborhood Parks Council, not the Mayor. Or rather, he's supposed to, but he's only managed to make it to ONE meeting in the past year. That's how much he cares about such things. And Rec & Parks isn't going to go searching for more parks for D6. If we want more of them, our Supervisor would have to take the initiative.
"Hire private contractors to do DPWs job? Do you really have ANY idea how big cities work? You don't get away with, as public official, going around DPW. You screw those guys - and their union - and you'll wake up the next morning to find that ALL the public trash cans have dissappeared and none of the traffic lights work."
Oh, man are you ever naive! You're suggesting that Daly dare not cross the DPW?! Here's a clown that's spent the past 6 years crossing the San Francisco Police Department (and the GGRA and the hotel industry and...), and you expect us to believe that the DPW is going to wreak holy vengeance against him with traffic lights?! I sure hope Daly never crosses the Friends of the Urban Forest; they might fertilize him to death! Thanks for that good, long belly laugh. I needed that!
"Public toilets? I agree we need them - problem is, the system has never really worked in this country. I've seen, firsthand, multiple cities in the U.S. fall in love with these things on a visit to Germany or France, and then try to make them work here. Problem is, they just don't hold up to the kind of abuse they get in this country from street folk/drug addicts. In nice European countries with strong social welfare systems its great - but in the every man for himself U.S. with its obscene homeless problem, doesn't work."
I argued that very point over on TheDalyShow. Having lived in Europe and Japan, I know how their public toilets work, and I know that they couldn't work the same way here as they do there. But that isn't our only option. We have toilets in civic buildings such as libraries which are used by the homeless. Toilets can be provided, but it takes some planning and an investment in infrastructure.
"Finally, yes, Daly SHOULD do more to address quality of life issues in his district. No reason he can't continue his advocacy for the less fortunate AND push QoL issues."
And there's even less reason for us to believe that he actually WILL address those issues, given that he's ignored them for the past 6 years, and can spend the next 4 doing nothing but catering to his base and pursuing higher office.
Gavin to Black: SNAP!
By the way, the NY Times didn't say that she had empty champaign glasses. She had empty "flutes".
What do you guys think was Daly's best/worst move in this race?
I think that his worst moves were his negative ads poking fun at Newsom. They were childish and mean-spirited -- similar to some of the negative shit that the SFSOS put out.
What do you think were Rob Black's?
His entering the race in the first place.
And what role do you think blogs and readers of blogs will have in future local elections?
Little to none.
Holy crap.
Thank you, TenderNob, for delivering a justified, overdue, righteous beatdown on the hypocrites in this thread. Celebrating the greatness and vision of Saint Chris while simultaneously excusing him from any responsibility for abolutely anything that happens is his district was growing tired.
Rita, I appreciate the shoutout, but if you're going to address me, puh-lease spell my name correctly. Two Zs, three Es.
Merci.
Very noble of Robert to contribute to get out the vote. Kudos to him.
Also, Tendernob is a bastion of well reasoned throughtfullness in this sea of name calling, sour grape swilling, cheese eating insanity. Tendernob, you are a better man than me for keeping your head. You rock.
my sentiment exactly
Tendernob - take a pill. No, correct that - take three, as you are obviously completely mental. Because only someone completely and utterly mental would ascribe such all-powerful powers to what is, at the end of the day, a FUCKING ALDERMAN, and totally and utterly ignore the indistubtable fact that the fucking MAYOR of the city is the one with the real power. "Oh, my disrict supe didn't show up for the Parks and Rec subcommitee meeting - thats why the Parks suck." Jesus H. Christ on a biscuit - you really have NO idea how big city governments work.
The sad fact is, all you Newsom ball washers and ball suckers and Daly haters, totally and completely ignore this fact. Maybe its because you are so used to having Mayors who don't give a shit about the people like Slick Willie Brown or Mayor McDreamy.
Meanwhile, those of us who have previously lived (and been politically active) in other major American cities with REAL Mayors have seen first hand what a real Mayor - and not a Mayor McDreamy - can actually accomplish. Real mayors like Mike Bloomberg in the N.Y.C. Tommy "Mumbles" Menino in Beantown. Dick Daley in Chi-town. Mayors with balls that other politicans fear. Mayors who both give a shit about the people AND who control big city machines.
But nope, as long as Mayor McDreamey remains so dreamy, he can do no wrong, even though he's an ineffectual ponce who can't do shit. So you wind up ascribing all-powerful abilities to fucking district alderman and get pissed off when they can't wave their magic wands and make all the trash get picked up on time.
Fucking San Franciscans - you wouldn't know a real big city mayor if it walked up to you and bit you on the ass.
Dave -
You've lost the plot.
When smacked around by TenderNob, you resort to a profane and incoherent rant celebrating a Republican as well as two of the most corrupt politicians in our nation's history.
"Fucking shit, Gavin's too pretty, fucking shit for real. Fuck. He has the power, but he's too fucking dreamy and shit..."
Wow. Shrill, illogical and wrong. Are you sure your name's not Chris?
Put a sock in it.