The Coalition On Homelessness was the unexpected boogeyman at Thursday night’s SF mayoral debate, but London Breed and Mark Farrell took plenty of heat for their own alleged corruption issues.

Thursday night was the fifth mayoral debate of the 2024 San Francisco mayoral race, and it will probably be the last. But it came on the immediate heels of yet another lavish spending scandal implicating a personal associate of Mayor Breed, plus allegations that candidate Mark Farrell tried to pull strings at City Hall to get permits expedited on his home renovations. So corruption allegations were sure to dominate this debate, and they did, in an hour-long KQED/San Francisco Chronicle debate that can be seen below.

Yet the best zinger of the night did not come from any of the candidates, but from KQED’s co-moderator Marisa Lagos. When pressing Farrell on his many campaign finance scandals that seem to border on being outright illegal, Farrell insisted that “Every single thing that I have ever done with my campaigns has been approved, vetted by, and signed off by my attorneys.”

To which Lagos shot back, “That doesn’t mean it’s necessarily legal though!” The audience howled with laughter, and the retort clearly threw Farrell off. (The response on his face at the 9:07 mark in that Youtube video is priceless.)

Still, Breed took heavy fire for corruption trouble too, notably the criminal sentences of her good friends Mohammed Nuru and former SFPUC chief Harlan Kelly. Lagos asked Breed very pointedly, “Are you willing to hold your friends accountable?”

Breed turned this into a dig at her opponents, saying that the work of these scandal-tinted departments also helped “People who don’t have angel investors, or weren’t born with silver spoons in their mouth.” She noted the city has 34,0000 employees, and “from time to time, we have had challenges with some of them.” She also noted that, for what it's worth, she’s appointed people like Dennis Herrera, Carmen Chu, and David Chiu, who have not had massive scandals.

Breed also pointed out that crime in SF is now lower than it was under Mark Fallell’s interim mayorship, which statistics say is true.

But Farrell insisted, “If you believe those stats. I’ve got a bridge to sell you.”

Lagos pressed Farrell on how there were more murders during his six-month tenure than Breed’s last six months. Farrell oddly started his response with, “During my time in office as [Board of Supervisors] budget chair, I partnered with Mayor Lee for four years.”

But he also touted the “higher staffing levels for police” on his term, and reiterated that “We need a new police chief.”

He said that as mayor, he would “push back against a police commission that is making it incredibly difficult for police officers to do their job on the streets of San Francisco every single day.”

Both before and after the debate, the moderate candidates ganged up on the Coalition on Homelessness and their lawsuit against encampment sweeps. Farrell went after them on Twitter hours before the debate saying, “they protested my house for clearing tent encampments,” (the Coalition disputes this), and Breed attacked them during the debate.

She called the Coalition “An organization funded by Daniel Lurie, an organization that continues to pay to put tents out on the streets so people can refuse the support that we are offering them.” Breed added that “We want to make sure that people are so uncomfortable that they take us up on our offer to go indoors.”

Lurie responded, “They are so scared of somebody coming from outside this broken system that has failed to deliver,” speaking of Breed and Farrell. “At every single level, they have failed. And now they’re trying to attack me. I can take it, but can you take four more years of it?”

Lurie too was pushed on his Tipping Point nonprofit, which absolutely failed at its goal of cutting chronic homelessness by 50%. Lagos cut into Lurie’s “outsider” image, noting that “you and your family are part of the financial old guard.”

Lurie twice repeated his claim that Tipping Point had gotten “40,000 people housed since 2015.” He got in a subtle dig that “We’ve always wished we had a stronger partner at the city,” and claimed they had successful homeless housing projects at 833 Bryant Street and 33 Gough Street.

“In my first six months, we’re going to stand up 1,500 emergency shelter beds, to make sure they’re safe,” Lurie said Thursday. “We’ve focused so much on harm reduction to the exclusion of getting people into treatment, and I will do that.”

But Breed took it to Lurie with harsh barbs. “Unlike some of my opponents on this stage, I actually have a job,” she said, and added of Lurie, “He hasn’t even been employed for the past five years. What does he know?”

Supervisor Aaron Peskin went after all three of them, hitting Farrell for allegedly "laundering money from [Recology] through a nonprofit that his wife was on the board of.” He nailed Breed on the Farrell home renovation permit issue (which Breed personally leaked to the press), calling out “London Breed expediting Mark Farrell’s permits.” And he torched Lurie on Tipping Point spending “$5 million on lavish charity parties for your wealthy friends.”

But Peskin may have won the whole exchange on housing, despite his reputation. “We need to reject the narrative of the real estate speculators and developers,” Peskin said. “I have voted to approve more housing at all income levels all over this city than every candidate on this stage combined, over 100,000 units.”

“I am a champion of affordable housing, they prefer luxury housing,” he alleged.

Though KQED’s Scott Schafer went there with Peskin’s history with alcohol, pressing Peskin over “drunken late night phone calls.”

“I’ve been elected five times by the good people of Chinatown and North Beach and the northeast corner of this city, and my colleagues have elected me three times to be president of the board,” Peskin responded. “There are many things that I have done in office that I am very proud of, and some that I am not proud of, but I’ve taken accountability for those issues.” He added that he’s “learned a lot from that experience of recovery.”

Supervisor Ahsha Safai hit Breed on saying that crime is down. “To consistently tell people that crime is down is gaslighting,” Safai charged. “Go tell that to the small businesses in my district. For the last three weeks, they have literally been broken into almost every night between 1 and 5 am.” He brought up the fatal shoving of a 74-year-old woman into a BART train, and said, “Crime is happening at a brazen level,” and that it “might be better on the numbers side, but people don’t feel it.”

And boy did he unload on Breed over the December 31, 2022 floods. “On New Year’s Eve, 2022, we had the worst flood in this city’s history,” Safai said. “This mayor got on a plane and went to go party in Las Vegas. That’s not what mayors do.”

Peskin complained to the Chronicle after the debate that Breed got most of the speaking time, which she did, because she was named by other candidates so many times that she got several rebuttals (she worked the moderators on this very skillfully). But with no more debates scheduled, this may have been the last chance for any candidate to shake up the race.

That is, unless there are more money and ethics scandals that break before the  November 5 election, and there probably will be.

Related: In First SF Mayoral Debate, Crowd’s Jeers are More Memorable Than Candidates’ Performances [SFist]

Image: San Francisco Chronicle via Youtube

The microphones won’t be muted at these six Bay Area presidential debate watch parties Tuesday night, many featuring booze, bingo, or comedians just making fun of the whole thing.  

Tonight is the only scheduled presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, after that disastrous Joe Biden debate performance in June effectively knocked him out of the race. So the stakes are high in this make-or-break event, with polling suggesting that the race is currently a dead heat in the battleground states.

The ABC News debate will be held at the  National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, starting at 6 pm PT. And if you prefer to be among a crowd of drinkers or hecklers during Tuesday night’s debate, there are plenty of meetups and debate watch parties happening in San Francisco, Oakland, or on Zoom. Most of these have meetups and mixers starting at 5 or 5:30 pm in the leadup to the 6 pm debate.

And, neighborhood bars all over the city will likely have the sound up on the debate, if they have TVs.

We noted yesterday that the SF Democratic Party would be having a debate watch party in their new headquarters inside the former Nordstrom Rack shoe store at Market and Fifth streets. But the invite for that event shows it is “at capacity,” so unless you’ve got some hook-ups among the top brass of the local Democratic Party, you will need to find another debate watch party.

Here are six options. Some are free, others are not, and we’re showing seat availability as of press time for this post. Meaning, some of these could sell out, so you may want to register fast.

Kamala vs. Trump: SF's Free Debate Watch Party (Happy Hour 'til 6:30pm)
The relatively new Civic Center-area comedy club and bar The Function brings the HellaFunny comedy crew in for a free debate watch party that is sure to be loaded with mockery. Happy Hour begins at 3 pm, with The Function’s $11 Happy Hour deal of a beer, a shot, and a lottery scratcher combo.  The Function, 1414 Market Street (at Fell Street), Free with RSVP

Presidential Debate Watch Party at the Commonwealth Club
Local political media personality Melissa Caen will host and provide some zingers at the California Commonwealth Club debate watch party, with snacks included with your ticket, and a cash bar. Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California, 110 The Embarcadero (at Mission Street)$10 for Commonwealth Club members, $15 for non-members, tickets here

Presidential Debate Watch Party at the The Chapel
The event space Manny’s official presidential debate watch party is not at the event space Manny’s. The Manny’s official watch party is over at The Chapel, but only $37 tickets currently remain available. There is a spillover event at the Manny’s space at 16th and Valencia, but that event appears to no longer have tickets available. The Chapel, 777 Valencia Street (at 19th Street), $37, tickets here

Presidential Debate Watch Party w/ the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club
The Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club hosts this debate watch party at the Castro’s LGBTQ+ social club The Academy. It’s free for Academy members and their esteemed plus-ones, $20 for the general public. The Academy, 2166 Market Street (at Sanchez Street), $20 for non-members, tickets here

Politics Suck: Presidential Debate Watch with Comedians
This one’s in Oakland at the co-working space Oakstop, and also being held on Zoom. Comedians Wonder Dave, K. Cheng, CYNTHIAINPUBLIC, and Weyam will skewer and fact-check in real time, and per the invite, “Snacks will be served as we watch the carnage unfold together.” Oakstop, 1721 Broadway #201 (at Franklin Street), $15 for 2-for-1 at $12.50 tickets here, $7 on Zoom tickets here

Hi Tops Castro Debate Watch Party
The Castro’s famed LGBTQ+ sports bar Hi Tops will have a 6 pm debate watch party, though their weekly Tuesday night trivia will also be going on after — it might be delayed if these debate proceedings are still hot and heavy after 8 pm. Hi Tops, 2247 Market Street (at 16th Street), Free

And for those of you playing at home Axios has a pretty good Trump-Harris debate bingo card and drinking game.

Related: SF Democrats Take Over Vacant Nordstrom Rack on Market Street [SFist]

Image: PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA - SEPTEMBER 09: Final preparations are made in the spin room prior to the ABC News Presidential Debate on September 09, 2024 at the Convention Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump will face off in their first debate tomorrow evening at the Constitution Center. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Monday night saw the first debate for Dianne Feinstein’s former Senate seat, where Katie Porter and Adam Schiff took center stage, while Barbara Lee fought to stay in the game, and Republican Steve Garvey stumbled in his attempts to not seem like he was a Republican.

How “already here” is the 2024 election? Just six weeks from today, Californians will be heading to the polls to vote in the March 5 primary election. Presumably, President Biden, Donald Trump, and Nancy Pelosi have their primary wins already in the bag, so the race for Dianne Feinstein’s former Senate seat is the notable election that day. Rep. Adam Schiff seems to be in the lead, and depending on what poll you believe, Rep. Katie Porter is in second place, or maybe Republican Steve Garvey is, with East Bay Rep. Barbara Lee a close fourth.  (The Top Two will advance to a November 5 face-off.)

So Monday night’s debate between the four of them, seen above in its 90-minute entirety, was crucial, with Politico moderator Melanie Mason correctly noting that this “will likely be the most competitive race for the U.S. Senate that California has seen in decades.”

The odd person out was obviously long-retired L.A. Dodger Steve Garvey, the only Republican on stage, who waffled embarrassingly on whether he was supporting Trump. (He obviously is! But he didn’t want to say it.) Garvey spent nearly ten minutes avoiding commitment on whether he supported the former president's reelection bid, saying his opponents were “trying to paint me into the corner, trying to call me MAGA. I’m my own man. I make my own decisions” (which drew laughter from the audience).“When the time comes, I'll do exactly what I said to you. I will look at the two opponents. I will determine what they did and at that time, I will make my choice.”

And in a true inside-baseball reference, he said to Katie Porter, “You’re banging on that trash can, just like the Astros did years ago,” a line so obviously pre-conceived that his campaign had a graphic for it ready to launch while the debate was still in progress.

Porter zinged back, “Once a Dodger, always a Dodger,” and added, “Ballots go out in six weeks, Mr. Garvey. This is not the minor leagues. Who will you vote for?”

Barbara Lee hit Garvey on this too, saying, “I believe our Republican opponent here on this stage has voted for Donal Trump twice. That agenda is an agenda to dismantle our democracy.”

Adam Schiff used it as a chance to burnish his impeachment and January 6 Commission credentials, telling the audience, “When our country was threatened by a would-be dictator in the Oval Office, one of us stepped up to the middle of that fight.  I took on the president, I investigated him, I led his impeachment.”

Schiff also taunted Garvey with “I can understand you don’t want to alienate MAGA world by saying you’re against him, but you also won’t stand up to him.”

On the economy, Barbara Lee used her own biography as once having been unhoused to show she understood those feeling the sting of income inequality and inflation.

“I was on public assistance, food stamps, Medi-Cal, raising two little boys as a single mom,” Lee said. “I know what it means to not have a place to live. I was unhoused during a very difficult period of my life.” She was the only one on stage to bring up, “We have to make college tuition free.”

Whereas Porter stuck with her whiteboard crusader against Corporate America persona, saying the current economy only benefited “CEOs of gigantic corporations, and people who have generations of inherited wealth." Porter reiterated she would “stand up to corporate power,”  singling out Wall Street, the pharmaceutical industry, and insurance companies that deny claims.

The most divisive issue of the night, without question, was the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. And Schiff was the most hard-line supporter of Israel among the Dems. “I think the United States should support Israel in defending itself,” Schiff said, though he threw in the qualifier, "We also should work with Israel to reduce the number of civilian casualties.”

But in terms of a ceasefire, Schiff contested that “I don’t know how you can ask any nation to cease fire when their people are being held by a terrorist organization.”

Lee brought up her own credentials as an early opponent to the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions to  unapologetically support a ceasefire. “It can spiral out of control,” she told the crowd. “You can see what’s happening in the region. We have to make sure that our national security is also protected.”

Porter had a more complex, but effective comeback. “Ceasefire is not a magic word. You can’t say it and make it so,” she said. “We have to push as the United States, as a world leader, for us to get to a ceasefire and to avoid a forever war.” But she added the conditions that the October 7 hostages had to be released, Gaza had to be rebuilt, Israel secured, and called for “free state for Palestinians where they can thrive.”

Another memorable exchange came on the state’s homelessness crisis, where Garvey tried some kind of George W. Bush “compassionate conservative” line.

“When was the last time any of you went to the inner city, and actually walked up to the homeless as I have over the last three weeks?” he charged at his opponents. “I went up to them and touched them and listened to them, and you know what? They looked at me and said ‘This is the first time that anyone’s come up to us and asked us about our life.’”

But Barbara Lee teed off on him. “That’s so patronizing. As someone who’s been unsheltered, I cannot believe how he described his walk and 'touching,' and being there with the homeless. Come on, please!”

Schiff riffed on that one too. “Mr Garvey, I’m sorry, that was a total swing and a miss. That was a total whiff.”

Again, this is a race for the Top Two, and Schiff would probably love nothing more than for Garvey to finish in the Top Two. Schiff could likely then cakewalk to victory in November, whereas Porter or Lee would give him a much tougher fight in largely Democratic California.

But polling still consistently shows about 25% of California voters as still undecided in this race, so any movement there is likely to affect the outcome. There will be another debate Monday, February 12, and another one later in February.

Related: Adam Schiff Edging Out Katie Porter for the Former Feinstein Senate Seat, But ‘Undecided’ is Crushing the Field [SFist]

Images: KTTV, FOX 11 Los Angeles

Things will get a little raucous when you have your SF supervisor candidate debate at a bar serving liquor, as we learned Wednesday night at El Rio when six candidates squared off over who will take Supervisor Hillary Ronen’s seat.

After no SF elections in 2023, 2024 will be an electoral barnburner. This year we have the U.S. presidency and Dianne Feinstein’s former Senate seat up for grabs, along with the San Francisco mayorship, plus the offices of District Attorney and City Attorney. And on the SF Board of Supervisors, there’s a power vacuum looming with the terming-out of Supervisors Aaron Peskin (for the second time!), Ahsha Safai (who’s running for mayor) and Hillary Ronen.

There are six candidates running for Ronen’s District 9 supervisor seat in November (or seven, if you count Michael Petrelis). Those six showed up for Wednesday night’s District 9 supervisor candidate debate at El Rio. Yes it was at a bar, outdoors on the back patio where it was 54 degrees and chilly, but it got hot when partisan pockets of certain candidates’ supporters heckled and tried to shout down their onstage opponents.

Audience members shouted “Answer the question!”, “Liar!”, and “Bullshit!” so many times you would have thought they were Republican members of Congress at an Obama State of the Union speech. One particularly animated (intoxicated?) member of the crowd started yelling “That cop’s a pimp,” and, “I’ll tell you his name. He’s a pimp, he sells drugs.” — at which point, moderator and Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club president Jeffrey Kwong frantically changed the topic by cheerfully thanking the debate’s many co-sponsors.

But as for the District 9 candidates themselves, here’s who debated Wednesday night:

• Trevor Chandler (former director of government affairs and public policy for the Citizen app)
• Jackie Fielder (co-founder the SF Public Bank Coalition who pulled a respectable 43% against Scott Wiener in a 2020 state Senate election)
• Julian Bermudez (local businessperson and army veteran)
• Roberto Hernandez (co-producer of Carnaval, and co-founder of Mission Food Hub)
• Jaime Gutierrez (security guard)
• Stephen Torres (former SF Entertainment Commissioner, one-time advisory board executive co-chair for the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District, and barkeep at Twin Peaks Tavern)

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You can watch the whole one-hour, forty-minute affair above, or on the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club Instgram page (though the first ten minutes is basically just dead air, as the crowd of more than 300 was somewhat late-arriving).

Though shockingly, perhaps the most contentious issue in District 9 over the last two years did not even come up: the illegal vending scene on Mission Street, and subsequent ban on vending and increased police response to the vending. Though Jaime Gutierrez, who’s tweeted critically about the illegal vending, did say that “This city’s turning into something that I don’t recognize.”

Otherwise, candidates pushed their priorities and issues.

“If there is someone talking to you on this campaign whose priority is not solely focused on the opioid epidemic, on safe and clean streets, I want you to ask them why,” Trevor Chandler said at one point. “We cannot bring people back from death just so they can die slower. It is not kind, it is cruel.”

Jackie Fielder, meanwhile, went after the causes of retail and restaurant vacancies in the district.

“The city rolls out the red carpet for corporations,” though not small businesses, Fielder said Wednesday night. “One of the root issues of this problem is commercial landlords who do not want to rent their spaces, who exploit the off-chance that in the future they’re going to be able to sell to some tech company or luxury real estate development. So we need to crack down on them.”

Candidates were allowed to ask each other questions, and Chandler started that by pointedly asking all the others, “Do you support arresting street-level fentanyl dealers?” (Eliciting a combination of yes, no, and “that can’t be the only thing.”) He followed that with another hot-button moderate issue, asking “Do you believe that someone suffering a mental health crisis should be held without their consent at a medical facility to undergo an evaluation by psychiatric staff?”

Fielder handled that deftly, saying “This is a red herring. There’s no system to put these people into.” She also parried on the issue of police staffing in the district, saying, “They’re all in Union Square, protecting the iPhone store.”

Stephen Torres took on the drug issue from a compassion standpoint. “I work at a supervised consumption site, and that supervised consumption site is Twin Peaks Tavern. It’s a bar in the Castro,” he told the crowd. “These people that you see on the street that you’re other-ing, these could be your family. They likely are.”

Probably the most pointed exchange of the evening was when Fielder went after Chandler for his outreach work for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), whom she called “one of the most conservative, most feared lobbying organizations in Washington D.C.,” noting their work against “Squad” Congress members Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar.

“In 2022 they endorsed 109 Republicans for reelection, all of whom are anti-abortion, anti-marriage equality, pro-gun,” Fielder charged, adding those AIPAC-endorsed Republicans “decided to protect Trump and overturn the results of the 2020 election.”

Chandler responded with his own charges over the Board of Supervisors’ recent resolution calling for a Gaza ceasefire.

“When I saw outright denials of the use of sexual violence and rape, when I saw that, I would not have associated myself with that, and I would have voted against [the resolution],” he said.

Whereas Roberto Hernandez focused more on the Mission than on the Israel-Gaza situation. “For me, the most meaningful gift and blessing that I have received is that I got trained by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta at a very young age to be an organizer,” he told the crowd.

So who won the debate? Probably El Rio, who got well over 300 people packed onto their back patio on a humdrum mid-January Wednesday night.

But what we saw Wednesday indicates that this is probably a two-person race between Trevor Chandler and Jackie Fielder. Those two turned out large numbers of supporters enthusiastically waving signs. Window signs and supporter turnout are two basic blocking-and-tackling techniques that determine success in modern-day local political campaigns, and Fielder and Chandler are, at this point at least, light years ahead of their opponents in those departments.  

As for the entire SF Board of Supervisors, there are five other seats up for grabs in November. In District 1, Supervisor Connie Chan will face a rematch with her 2020 opponent Marjan Philhour, and campaign filings show someone named Jen Nossokoff is running for that seat too. Over in Sup. Aaron Peskin’s District 3, Danny Sauter is running again, this time against former SFMTA board member Sharon Lai (as well as every-week public comment character JConr Ortega, whom Peskin recently called “a horse’s ass” in a rather amusing hot mic moment).

In District 5, Sup. Dean Preston faces a reported challenge from former state Assembly candidate Bilal Mahmood (though Mahmood hasn’t formally filed to run yet). Campaign filings show District 7 Sup. Myrna Melgar has a challenger named Matt Boschetto who has filed to run. And the termed-out Sup. Ahsha Safai’s seat in District 11 has candidates Ernest “EJ” Jones and Roger Marenco who’ve both filed to run.

More candidates could still jump into any of these races, as the filing deadline to run is not until June 11, 2024.

Related: Four Candidates Already In Race For Ronen’s District 9 Seat, as She’s Termed Out Next Year [SFist]

Images: Joe Kukura, SFist

Fox News stacked the deck against Gavin Newsom in his Thursday night debate with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, moderated by Fox News host Sean Hannity, but a calm, collected Newsom scored the night’s best zingers.

We watched Thursday night’s Fox News Great Red vs. Blue State Debate pitting California Governor Gavin Newsom against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, on the extremely high likelihood that you did not watch it. It was sort of a “kid’s table” debate, between two men who would love to be their party’s 2024 presidential nominee, but will almost certainly not be.

And being broadcast on Fox News, it was definitely a two-on-one, ganging-up debate, as the brazenly partisan moderator Sean Hannity framed nearly every question as an outright attack on California while flatteringly pumping up the state of Florida. (How biased of a host was Hannity? He started one question with the phase, “Joe Biden has experienced what I believe to be significant cognitive decline….”)

But Newsom showed himself to be a damned fine debater, unflappable in the partisan onslaught, and excellent at not answering questions he preferred to avoid. Though he oddly looked more tan than usual, and may have had some sort of lip gloss on. Though he, Hannity, and DeSantis had all hit the cake make-up pretty hard, and maybe that’s just a requirement for an-air personalities at the extremely cosmetics-conscious Fox News Channel.

Academy Award winners whose speeches go too long will take inspiration from Newsom’s long-windedness in the clip below. As Sean Hannity desperately tried to go to a commercial break, Newsom refused to stop talking, lecturing that DeSantis was to blame for “the thousands of lives that died unnecessarily because he played with the fringe of his party. And when it comes to the issue of schools, you better be careful. You had more learning loss during COVID than the national average and the state of California. It’s a fact. More learning loss. Your economy contracted more in 2020 and expanded slower than California in 2021. More to come on this topic.”

Later in the debate, Newsom stepped on Hannity again. When Hannity said at one point “We’re moving on to the next issue,” Newsom shot back “No Sean, not the next issue!”

But for Ron DeSantis, it was an opportunity to pretend for one night that he was a frontrunner in the presidential race. Well, up until the segment about busing migrants to blue states, when Newsom body-blowed him with the line “You’re trolling folks and trying to find migrants to play political games and try to get some news and attention so you can out-Trump Trump. And by the way, how’s that going for you, Ron? You’re down 41 points in your own home state.”

DeSantis’s tack was to just interrupt Newsom as much as possible, and when Newsom cited statistics, DeSantis would just say he was lying (“You’re just jabbering.”) DeSantis also relied upon wholly unprovable stories of SF cops or various constituents coming up to him and saying what a wonderful job he’s doing.

Though one of those anecdotes may have been true. “I was talking to a fellow who made the  move from California to Florida,” DeSantis said at one point. “He was telling me that Florida is much better governed, safer, better budget, lower taxes, all this stuff. And then he paused and said 'Oh, by the way, I’m Gavin Newsom’s father-in-law.'” (This is likely a reference to his ex-wife Kimberly Guilfoyle’s father.)

Hannity made much political hay of the so-called exodus of people from California to Florida, to which Newsom responded, “You mean the last two years, more Floridians going to California than Californians going to Florida?” (He is technically correct.) And when DeSantis hammered that Florida was more pro-business than California, Newsom zinged, “Is that what Disney’s saying?”

And yes, San Francisco got a few mentions. On the unflattering side Ron DeSantis busted out the poop map. “This is an app where they plot the human feces that are found on the streets of San Francisco. You see how almost the whole thing is covered,” DeSantis charged. “Except when a communist dictator comes to town. Then they cleaned up the streets. They lined the streets with Chinese flags, they didn’t put American flags there.”

But Newsom stuck up for San Francisco. “Go to places like Jacksonville, go to places like Orlando, go to places like Tampa. The murder rate’s off the charts compared to cities like San Francisco,” he said earlier in the debate.

People will argue over who “won” this debate, probably in a way that just confirms their prior convictions. But in terms of who showed themselves to be the alpha dog, consider this exchange before the debate’s final commercial break.

“I hope we can do another half hour. I’ve got all night,” Newsom said with swagger. “Let’s just do an extended hour. I’m happy to do it.”

But on return from that commercial break, Hannity just sheepishly and vaguely said, “By mutual agreement, both candidates had other commitments and they realized afterward they couldn't stay longer.”

Related: Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis Wage Taunting War as Florida Governor Calls SF a ‘Dumpster Fire’ [SFist

Image via Fox News

Tonight is the first Republican presidential debate, otherwise known as “the bloodbath cornucopia of the 58th quadrennial Hunger Games”. Admit it, you’re tempted to watch this thing for the sheer gonzo political porn spectacle of it all. But tonight’s 6 p.m. PDT proceedings, being broadcast live on Fox News, are not streaming live online. So which San Francisco bars and venues are broadcasting the Republican debate? Yes, we do have political bars in this town. But the debate is up against Jon Stewart’s final episode of the Daily Show so most of the dorky political bars are going with that, and so the pickings are slim.

What’s amazing to me is that some venues are charging admission for this thing. What’s even more amazing is that some of them are sold out! There are either more Republicans in the Bay Area than I thought, or else the Koch Brothers bought a shit-ton of tickets they have no intention of using.

We did find a couple San Francisco venues playing tonight’s Republican debate. Here are a few venues where you can watch tonight’s debate and chug beers like Marco Rubio chugs water on live national television.

Connecticut Yankee

“We’re doing it, but we’re not making it a big deal,” says tonight’s bartender at Connecticut Yankee. Republican debate watchers will be welcomed at the Connecticut Yankee, but will be relegated to a back room not unlike lower-tier candidates relegated to the Fox News kids’ table debate. After all, this place is Daily Show territory.
100 Connecticut St. (at 17th. St.)

SFDCCC's Republican Debate Watch Party

(Image: SF Democrats)

It’s $25 even for the cheap seats, but you’ll have Nancy Pelosi onhand to co-host the SF Democrats Republican Debate and Circus Watch Party. You do get one complimentary drink for the cheap ticket, and more drinks for the pricier tickets. Apparently this event will utilize a circus theme.
Laborers International Union of North America Afl-Cio Local 261 building, 3271 18th St, (at Shotwell St.)

SFGOP Republican Primary Debate Watch Party (SOLD OUT)

(Image: SF GOP Facebook page)

The SF Republican Party is holding their debate watching party at a private golf course and it is sold out. That said, their Facebook event page shows 1 person going. Across the greater Bay Area, the Bay Area GOP website lists several debate watching parties in Alameda, Walnut Creek and of course the Dave & Buster’s in Milipitas.
Presidio Golf Club, 8 Presidio Terrace (at West Pacific Ave.)

New Parkway Theater (SOLD OUT)

(Image: Whitney F via Yelp)

The boozy and comfortable New Parkway Theater has Angry Black Lady Chronicles’; Imani Gandy and defense lawyer Dan Roth hosting. But curiously, this Republican debate watching party in Oakland is completely sold out.
474 24th St., (at Telegraph Ave.), Oakland

Are we missing any places, Bay Area political junkies? Feel free to go over your allotted time in the comments section below.

In a move that smacks of logic and sensitivity, KTVU 2 (the Bay Area's FOX affiliate) will air tonight's NLCS Game 7 between the Giants and the Cardinals in lieu of the presidential debate. So whatever inane memes or alleged viral wonk nonsense Romney and Obama poop out of their mouths will have to be gleaned from Twitter or Facebook feeds. For tonight, you see, your focus should be on the National League pennant finale, not the next leader of the free world.

Coverage begins at 4:30.

If you must, you can check out the debate on TV36 or any other number of ways.

Oh boy. The wacky kids at the Harvey Milk Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Democratic Club will hold a District 5 Supervisor candidates’ debate tonight from 7 - 8:30 p.m. And you have got to be there. Seeing as how it's steeped in progressive fun, some crazy-ass shit will surely go down.

The debate will be moderated by "transgender performer, artist, and social commentator" Ben McCoy and totally rad SF Bay Guardian managing editor Marke Bieschke. And, according to Milk Club leader and Miss Trannyshack winner Glendon Anna Conda Hyde, "The Milk Board is proud to bring you debates that will help us choose the person who is willing to fight the hardest for true social justice. We look forward to hearing how the candidates will move drug policy, nightlife concerns, public space, Queer seniors’ issues, Sex Worker rights and the housing crisis into a future that is all inclusive. We are looking for that voice that represents best the core values of the Milk Club and San Francisco."

Okay?

This could turn into a bunch on wonks screaming into a bag of sand, especially if D5 goes the way of the artisan coffee nerd, but you should consider attending if you live in the district. Or not. It all goes down from 7-8:30 p.m. at the Eric Quezada Center on 518 Valencia (oddly enough not in D5, but the Mission). This evening's event will be catered by Bi-Rite. (Ha, not really! Keep dreaming.)

Oh, and SFist's Andrew Dalton will live tweet the festivities. (Bring him a Ritter Sport "corn flake" or "marzipan" treat to get him to talk to you. He's like a kitten that way.)

Eleven of the San Francisco mayoral candidates will gather at San Francisco's historic and tony City Club for yet another round of debates. While, sadly, neither Melissa Griffin nor Beth Spotswood will be there to conduct or tweet the wonky merriment, CBS 5 anchorman Ken Bastida will moderate, while Chronicle Editorial Page Editor John Diaz, Phil Matier and KCBS reporter Barbara Taylor sit on as panelists. (Since Bad Girls Club is a rerun, your SFist editor will be sitting in the audience. Do stop by to say hi if you see us.)

For those of you who cannot attend, be sure to check out the debate at 6 p.m. Either stay here at SFist or visit CBS 5 to watch Jeff Adichi, Michela Alioto-Pier, John Avalos, David Chiu, Bevan Duffy, Tony Hall, Dennis Herrera, Ed Lee, Joanna Rees, Phil Ting, and Leland Yee all vie for your vote.

Well, this should prove absolutely uneventful and 100% quiet with no fuss or muss. On Thursday, the fine folks that make up the San Francisco Young Democrats will host yet another mayoral debate featuring your favorite temporary wonk celebrities: Michaela Alioto-Pier, John Avalos, David Chiu, Bevan Dufty, Dennis Herrera, Ed Lee, Joanna Rees, Phil Ting, Leland Yee, and everyone's favorite surprise candidate, Mayor Ed Lee.

That's right, Lee will jump our of the frying pan and into the volcano's mouth at his second mayoral debate. As you may recall, Lee made his candidacy official on Monday after promising the Board of Supervisors and the public that he would not seek a full term.

"No vuvuzelas," requests the SF Young Dems.

Best of all, Melissa Griffin will be the evening's moderator while Beth Spotswood and Pollo Del Mar provide livestrem commentary throughout the night. Visit the SF Young Dems Facebook page for more details.

Location: African American Art & Cultural Complex (762 Fulton Street)
Time: ‎6 pm, Thursday, August 11

A radio debate between gubernatorial candidates Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman, which was scheduled for Tuesday at 10 a.m. on the Ronn Owens' show, has been cancelled. La Marinucci reports that the two candidates decided to squash the "discussion" by "mutual agreement,'' and not because of the Whitman campaign's spectacular implosion. (Because time spent debating issues is time not spent wasting money and abusing eBay employees and illegally-hired maids. And time spent... um, yeah, we don't have anything bad to say about Brown just now. Whitman seems increasingly atrocious by comparison. Alas.) [Chron]