McGoldrick finds unlikely allies in his fight against downtown It isn't Sup. Jake McGoldrick alone against the big boys from downtown anymore. There's been so much money and negativity in the recent anti-McGoldrick smear campaign from downtown-funded independent expenditure committees (see Trail Mix, 9/15/04 and 9/22/04) that it seems to be worrying even his District 1 opponents – for varying reasons.

In what was meant to be a press conference with just him and McGoldrick, candidate David Heller stood up Oct. 15 to express his disappointment with the increasing negativity of the race and to tell the downtown groups, "Please stop your work in District 1. And we mean that. We can handle electing our own representatives to the board."

Fellow candidates Leanna Dewaydiak and – surprise! – the downtown-backed Lillian Sing pitched in to repudiate negative campaigning, joining the conference after it had been announced. Naturally, sparks flew, with Dewaydiak playing mediator between McGoldrick and Heller on one side and Sing on the other.

Sing claimed that she had returned all donations from the downtown groups and insisted that Ethics Commission statutes prevent her from talking to the groups directly, as McGoldrick requested her to do. Yet the main groups attacking McGoldrick – the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, SFSOS, and the Small Property Owners Association – are closely allied to Mayor Gavin Newsom, who is backing Sing, and to Eric Jaye, who's been campaign manager for both Newsom and Sing.

Sing's claim of having returned money can't be verified until the next reporting period, but as of the last report on Oct. 5, Sing showed a whopping $198,000 in donations, much of that from the usual downtown suspects. Heller ended the press conference on this question: how could a relative newcomer to the Richmond have raised so much in campaign funds?

Yet Sing used the press conference to plead her innocence, producing a "clean campaign pledge" she, Dewaydiak, and Heller eventually signed before witnesses. McGoldrick won't sign the pledge, telling the Bay Guardian it's easy for Sing to stay clean when she has people to do the dirty work for her.

"It's hypocritical, disingenuous, and phony," he told us. "She had a complete chance two month ago to stop this smear campaign. She refused. If she goes to her backers and surrogates with a general letter for them to sign, asking them to stop the anti-Jake campaign, then I'll consider signing her pledge."

SFSOS head Wade Randlett didn't return our calls, but GGRA director Kevin Westlye told us, "The Golden Gate Restaurant Association PAC has always and will continue to carefully evaluate each potential piece before distribution. With that said, we remain opposed to the reelection of Supervisor McGoldrick." (Jeanette Huang)

If a report doesn't get issued, is it still a report? With the presidential election just weeks away, a new draft report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights "finds that President Bush has neither exhibited leadership on pressing civil rights issues, nor taken action that matched his words."

If you didn't hear about the report, well, you aren't alone. That's because the commission has bowed to political pressures and decided to sit on the scathing, 181-page document until after the presidential election. But you can read it at www.usccr.gov/pubs/bush/bush04.pdf – and pass it on to friends.

Among other findings, the report states that Bush gave less funding for government programs dealing with civil rights than the two previous administrations, failed to prevent racial profiling after Sept. 11, 2001, ignored inequality in education, and took two years to allocate funds for election reform. (Laura Allen)

When they say Big Tobacco, they mean BIG TOBACCO Publicizing Big Tobacco's alleged role in funding Proposition 64 – which would prevent citizens from being able to sue to enforce laws protecting consumers and the environment – activists on Oct. 14 placed a 15-foot inflatable cigarette box with "A Public Health Warning: No on 64" in front of City Hall. Yet Philip Morris offered an even better attention-getter the same day of the publicity stunt when it donated $100,000 to the Yes on 64 campaign. "This is the smoking gun that shows that big tobacco, along with big oil and big banks, are the real beneficiaries of Proposition 64, not the small businesses being portrayed in TV ads," Carmen Balber of Election Watchdog said in a statement, besting the comment that Center for Environmental Health director Michael Green made at the event: "We're here today to educate the public about the fact that Prop. 64 is designed to protect corporations and threaten public health." (Allen)

Ranked choice is a rank experience for local Democratic Party Two weeks before Election Day, ranked-choice voting has already been a tumultuous experience for the San Francisco Democratic Party.

Last month the Democrats gave top-ranked endorsements to Sups. Jake McGoldrick, Sean Elsbernd, and Robert Haaland in the three most competitive local races, after some bitter infighting over a decision that may decide the outcome in all three races.

Now the Democratic County Central Committee has to decide if it's going to display photographs of only its first-choice endorsements or feature all of them in its voter guide, which gets mailed to 165,000 voters throughout the city. The problem with including all of the endorsements in the voter guide is that it waters down the impact of the top-ranked endorsement. And some of these races are so close, it's almost impossible to predict who will win.

The decision is a lose-lose proposition for the DCCC, which has already been criticized for handling the decision poorly. And the worst part about it is the sharpest criticism has come from Democrats themselves.

"What we have right now is a fraudulent representation of the Democratic Central County Committee's choices with regards to the supervisor races," Tom Hsieh told the Bay Guardian. In response, Haaland and McGoldrick supporters say Hsieh and others who want to change the voter guide are just trying to help elect Lillian Sing in District 1.

So far nobody disputes that the party didn't follow its own competitive bidding process, instead using consultants Jim Rivaldo and Jim Stearns, who both represent candidates featured in the voter guide. It's also generally agreed that party chair Leslie Katz and Rivaldo designed the voter guide with little or no input from other DCCC reps, raising the specter that campaign consultants had undue influence on how it was created.

Katz is in China participating in a friend's wedding and couldn't be reached for comment. Rivaldo said all of his work was authorized and approved by Katz.

But that hasn't stopped several candidates – including Dan Kalb, Bill Barnes, and Pat Lakey – from challenging the voter guide, which now only features photographs of the top-ranked candidates. The names of second- and third-ranked choices appear on the back of the guide.

The DCCC was scheduled to decide on the final design Oct. 19, after our press time. The voter guide is expected to hit mailboxes Oct. 28. (Matthew Hirsch)