All good San Francisco political junkies have Usual Suspects bookmarked on their browser. The local clearinghouse of all things political keeps everyone up to date, diligently reading and summarizing all the articles about anything even remotely related to local politics -- and not just the articles featuring Chris Daly doing something vaguely embarrassing, like some other websites we might mention. We sat down (virtually) with the seven folks behind the scenes and chatted 'em up. (yes, there's only six of 'em in the picture above. The seventh person came on board after the picture was taken; her picture is after the jump.)

Give us a little background on Usual Suspects!
All of us: We’re seven people – Alex Clemens, Jaime Salinas, Nia Crowder, Jaime Rossi, Deborah Lao, Andrew Gregg [in cable car order], and Lily Ho [after the jump.] We’re from all over the place, and we’re in our 20s through our 40s. We’re consultants [check out their day job, Barbary Coast Consulting, which does political consulting work.] We throw together Usual Suspects Monday through Friday so that political junkies can read all the news important to them on one site. (We’re not journalists – we’re aggregators. And we try to keep it light and witty.)

So that you can tell who’s answering what, we’ll preface our answers with our initials

SF has a pretty vibrant online political scene, with all these blogs and chat groups and online papers. How do you think that affects the way political junkies process their news?

JR: It is all about real time information. Everyone wants to put the latest "news" or "story" on their website. Since information translates into perceived access, it is real benefit to be the first ones to get a story out.

Of course, the negative to all this is that everyone thinks they know something important and passes it on as real information. The key is to have a good filter and be able to differentiate truth, hearsay, and pure b.s.

What's the biggest political story you see for 2006?
AC: That’s the beauty of San Francisco – it could be just about . However, some wish to see the makeup of the Board of Supervisors substantially altered this November. It’ll be interesting to see whether they succeed.

Who'd the Usual Suspects'd rather (Daly or Newsom), oysters at the Swan Oyster Depot, and more best burrito picks -- after the jump.

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