The only two local-official elections that will be at all interesting this November are the Sheriff's race in which incumbent Ross Mirkarimi will have to fend of bad press and a back-room campaign by his enemies, including the SFPD, to de-throne him in favor of challenger Vicki Hennessy, a former deputy sheriff and the race for District 3 supervisor, which is heating up as former supervisor and Board president Aaron Peskin is challenging incumbent mayoral appointee Julie Christensen. As the Examiner is reporting, tech billionaire and friend-of-the-mayor Ron Conway has already put a bunch of money into a PAC helping to support Christensen's campaign.
They note that a $28,250 donation, confirmed by a Conway rep, went to pay for a poll conducted by the PAC, the Alliance for Jobs and Sustainable Growth, regarding the District 3 race.
That donation now may be questioned by the Ethics Commission along with other third-party spending that isn't being properly reported.
Just to get you up to speed, Peskin has remained a political force in the North Beach/Telegraph Hill scene despite not holding political office for several years, and was one of the progressive backers of the big No Wall on the Waterfront campaign that killed the 8 Washington project in 2013.
He represents a coalition of foes to the mayor's business-friendly, centrist policies, and he's looking to return to past glory on the Board of Supervisors, joining an existing but significantly weakened progressive voting bloc that includes Supervisors Kim, Campos, Mar, Avalos, and sometimes Breed.
The Mayor, and hence Conway, want to prevent that from happening, and keep Christensen in office, while Lee's once friend now sometimes enemy Rose Pak is preparing for a "bare-knuckle street fight" to get Peskin back in office.
If you're thrilled by the Inside Baseball nature of it all, this will get interesting. Otherwise, you can return to whatever you were doing and pass this off as provincial politics at its worst.
Previously: Big Names Throw Their Weight Behind Julie Christensen, Against Aaron Peskin
