By Tim Redmond

On the last day before the election, Warren Hinckle managed to get a final blast in, distributing (he told me) 40,000 coies of the Argonaut, his occasionally published journal that seems to be published largely when there are political ads available to fund it. Most of the distribution's going on the west side of town, and the cover features a rather nasty illustration of Janet Reilly, in a low-cut, tight dress, drinking a glass of champagne in her Sea Cliff mansion.

By Tim Redmond

The polls have the Democratic primary for governor way too close to call, with some showing Westly moving up and some suggesting that Angelides has the momentum -- and all of them showing that almost a third of the voters haven't made up their minds the day before election day. Randy Shaw at BeyondChron predicts an Angelides win because the hard-core Democrats are most likely to go to the polls. Markos at DailyKosgives a nod to the possibiity that negative campaigning has turned a lot of voters off, but he goes further, saying that both sides have run lousy campaigns.
The constant internal warfare matters in this race a lot more than the nastiness in the Reilly-Ma contest. The candidate who takes the Democratic Assembly primary in SF is the sure winner in November; the Republicans don't have a chance (although if the winner is Ma, I'm voting for Barry Hermanson. But either Westly or Angelides will have to unite the party and fight an ugly battle against Arnold in the fall, and this shit won't help a bit.

We're having some web-server problems here, as some of you may have noticed. But we've managed to get our election blog up and running, which is what you see here now. For your infor, here's the list of election-night parties.

Janet Reilly
Canvas Café
1200 9th Avenue at Lincoln

Fiona Ma
Irish Cultural Center
2700 45th @ Sloat

Yes on A
Powell’s Place
1521 Eddy @ Fillmore

No on D
Medjool
2522 Mission St. (on the roof)

Leland Yee
Campaign Headquarters, 6644 Mission Street, Daly City, CA

Mike Nevin
Plumber's Union Hall
1519 Rollins Road
Burlingame

Eric Safire for Judge
398 7th St.
Ted's

For those of you who are still trying to vote, I'm really sorry that our endorsements haven't been available, but here they are:

The Clean Slate
Our endorsements for the June 6 election. Tear off and take to the polls
National races
Senate
(D) No endorsement
(G) Senate
Todd Chretien
Congress, District 6
(D) Lynn Woolsey
Congress, District 7
(D) George Miller
Congress, District 8
(D) No endorsement
Congress, District 8
(G) Krissy Keefer
Congress, District 9
(D) Barbara Lee
Congress, District 11
(R) Pete McCloskey
Congress, District 12
(D) No endorsement
Congress, District 13
(D) Pete Stark
State races and propositions
Governor
(D) Phil Angelides
Lieutenant governor
(D) Jackie Speier
Secretary of state
(D) Debra Bowen
Controller
(D) Joe Dunn
Treasurer
(D) Bill Lockyer
Attorney general
(D) Jerry Brown
Insurance commissioner
(D) Cruz Bustamante
Board of Equalization, District 1
(D) Betty Yee
Superintendent of public instruction
(nonpartisan) Jack O'Connell
Senate, District 12
(D) Leland Yee
Assembly, District 12
(D) Janet Reilly
Assembly, District 12
(G) Barry Hermanson
Assembly, District 13
(D) Mark Leno
Assembly, District 14
(D) Loni Hancock
Assembly, District 16
(D) Sandré Swanson
Proposition 81
YES
Proposition 82
YES
San Francisco races and propositions
Superior Court, Judicial Seat 8
Eric Safire
San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee:
District 12
Susan Hall, Trevor McNeill, Jane Morrison, Melanie Nutter, Connie O'Connor, Roy Recio, Arlo H. Smith, David Wong
District 13
Bill Barnes, David Campos, Gerry Crowley, Rick Galbreath, Michael Goldstein, Robert Haaland, Joseph Julian, Rafael Mandelman, Tim Paulson, Laura Spanjian, Holli Thier, Scott Wiener
Proposition A
YES
Proposition B
YES
Proposition C
NO
Proposition D
NO
Alameda County races and measures
Assessor
Roy Thomsen
Auditor-controller
Patrick O'Connell
District attorney
No endorsement
Sheriff
Gregory J. Ahern
Superintendent of public instruction
Sheila Jordan
Superior Court, Judicial Seat 22
Fred Remer
Measure A
YES
Measure B
NO
Oakland races
Mayor
Ron Dellums
Auditor
Courtney Ruby
City Council, District 2
Aimee Allison
City Council, District 4
Jean Quan
City Council, District 6
Desley Brooks
School board, District 2
David Kakishiba
School board, District 4
Gary Yee
School board, District 6
Chris Dobbins
Live election night coverage at www.sfbg.com
For detailed explanations of our endorsements and a printable version of this slate card, go to www.sfbg.com.

By Steven T. Jones
Maybe there is something to this 6/6/06 numerological weirdness after all. The mood seems dark and sinister for an election day. And it was certainly some devilish characters who have shut our Web site down all day with a denial of service attack. We don't know which ones, but the likely suspect list should start with those affiliated with candidates that we didn't endorse in close races: Fiona Ma, Mike Nevin, Lillian Sing, Steve Westly, and the downtown players gunning for Chris Daly's propositions. I'm not accusing anyone of anything. I'm just saying it was someone, and probably someone who knows how influential Guardian endorsements have been in the past.

But we're back, ready to canvas the city, cover the parties, and put it all online. So check back regularly tonight and in the coming days.

Here's the list of east bay parties:

Oakland Mayor

Ron Dellums
· Carneval, Behind Yoshi’s, on 2nd street
· http://www.rondellumsformayor.com/
· 510. 444. 6016

Ignacio De La Fuente
· 8:30 at Zazoo’s restaurant
· 30 Jack London Square, Oakland
· http://www.delafuenteformayor.com/homex.asp?Q=Homepage
· 510. 893. 2006

Nancy Nadel
· 8:00 or 9:00 at the Uptown Bar
· 1928 Telegraph Ave, Oakland
· http://www.nancynadelformayor.com/
· 510. 654. 6966

Oakland Assembly

Sandre Swanson
· 8:15 at Campaign HQ
· 449 15th Street (corner of Broadway) Oakland
· http://www.sandreswanson.org/
· 510. 251. 9765

John Russo
· 8:30 or 9:00 at Campaign HQ
· 3217 Lakeshore Ave, Oakland
· http://www.johnrusso.com/
· 510. 419. 0613

Oakland City Council

Aimee Alison
· 6:30-10:00 at Oasis Bar and Restaurant
· 135 12th Street (between Oak and Madison) Oakland
· http://www.aimeeallison.org/
· 510. 277. 0182

By Tim Redmond

Well, the simple answer is that we're still not sure -- but there's some indication that we were socked by a denial-of-service attack. Imagine that happening on 6/06/06, in the middle of election day.

Even the folks at DailyKos have been speculating about this, wondering if maybe the Republicans were involved somehow. I dunno; maybe someone local who didn't want our endorsements available (they are now, below, scroll down). Maybe it's just one of those things; maybe it's ....... SATAN!

Either way, we've managed to get this blog up, which will take us through election night.

By Tim Redmond
SF Gate is reporting low turnout and bored election workers playing sudoku. In Bernal Heights, where I live, the poll workers told me it had been very slow -- and that's not good news, since this is usually a high-turnout district.
If you haven't voted yet, go now -- our endorsements are below (scroll down)

By Tim Redmond
At City Hall

Just in case anyone hasn't figured this out yet, we may not know until tomorrow who the Democratic candidate for governor is. That's because Alameda County, which hasabout five percent of all democratic voters, won't be finished hand-counting -- yes, hand-counting -- ballots. The L.A. Times has the scoop on what happened in some detail.

By Tim Redmond

As the night wears on, pay attention to the special election in the California 50th Congressional District, where Francine Busby is trying to put a heavily Republican district that had been represented by Randy "Duke" Cunningham into the Democratic column. Almost everyone agrees that this is a canary-in-the-coal-mine race that will tell us how deeply people are sick of Bush, lies, corruption, and the GOP hegemony.

By Tim Redmond
At City Hall

Well, our resident expert on political predictions, Chris Bowman, who is that rarest of creatures (a smart Republican), stopped by with his predictions. He estimates 42 to 44 percent turnout city wide, which is actually better than I had expected. That's based on a formula for predicting turnout based on absentees that he's used for about 15 years.

By Tim Redmond
At City Hall
First results are in, mostly the more-conservative absentees, and even so, there are some surprises. Leland Yee is way, way ahead in the state senate races, 66 percent to 27 percent (although part of the district is in San Mateo, so Yee can't quite celebrate yet.

Fiona Ma is well up on Janet Reilly, 58-41.

In the governor's race, Angelides and Westly are close, but Angelides is ahead, 47-44 percent. Remember, this is among absentees. I'd say that a good sign of Angelides taking San Francisco easily -- let's see what it means for the rest of the state.

By Sarah Phelan
Somewhere in Alameda County

You’ve got to feel just a tad sorry for the political animals in the East Bay tonight. While other campaigns are cracking open the bubbly, or drowning their sorrows in pitchers of beer, on this satanic-sounding O6.06.06 election night, the folks in Alameda County are going to be chewing their nails, a manicure-challenging activity they’ll likely continue until the wee hours -- or even until noon, Wednesday, June 7 -- before they find out if their candidate won.

Results for the props are interesting, too. Prop. A is behind, 53-47, but that's the conservative side of town showing up in the absentees. So there's a good chance it will survive. Prop. B, the TIC-disclosure measure, is ahead, 50-49, which means it's almost certainly going to be victorious; if the conservatives are voting for it, it's over.

Prop. D is losing, big -- 32.8 yes, 67 percent no. That means this one is over, and Doug Comstock, the campaign manager, as much as admitted it to me a few minutes ago.

With a few precincts starting to trickle in, here's what we have:

Ma 58, Reilly 41; this is narrowing a bit. Yee, 66, Nevin 28, Papan 5; unless San Mateo is WAY for Nevin, this one's looking pretty close to in the bag.

Prop. B is going to win, and Prop. D -- despite all of Joe O'Donoghue's money -- is going down in a huge way. The conservative absentees are against it, 67-32.

By Tim Redmond
At City Hall

Well, with a little over 10 percent of the precincts counted, the numbers don't look good for Janet Reilly. After you back out the absentees, the election-day votes are running 59 percent in favor of Fiona Ma. Things will have to change pretty quick for Reilly to have a chance at all.

It appears at this point that the high-powered, well-funded negative attack ads have taken their toll.

By G.W. Schulz
Leland Yee Campaign Headquarters

Just across the Daly City border on the sleepy southern reaches of Mission Street, State Senate District 12 candidate Leland Yee has yet to show up to his election party. It was 8 p.m. when I arrived, and about 200 supporters were mingling anxiously. Cheers erupted when a voice announces that Yee is racing past Mike Nevin in San Francisco absentee ballots 66 to 34 percent. But the two are stilll running a dead heat in San Mateo County at 40 percent. In both counties, Lou Papan is wavering between 15 and 20 percent. Yee campaign consultant Jim Stearns said that predictions that Papan would spoil the race appear to be not true, "at least right now." He says it's still not clear how some of the late-stage negative campaigning would impact final results.

By Tim Redmond
At City Hall

OK, we can now fairly safely project most of the local races. Leland Yee is way ahead in SF, and trailing only slightly in San Mateo, so Yee will be our next state senator. Janet Reilly isn't looking good at all, so we may be facing Assemblymember Fiona Ma (ick, I'm voting for the Green Party candidate, Barry Hermanson).

On the props:

Prop. A, the violence-prevention measure, is coming up fast, winning the election-day vote by 51 percent, and will almost certainly prevail.

Prop. B, the eviction-disclosure measure, is a winner.

Prop. C, the Transbay Terminal governance plan, is toast.

Prop. D, the Laguna Honda measure, is burnt toast.

We will be back shortly with the county central committee.

By Tim Redmond
At City Hall

More than half the precincts are in, and we know what the 13th AD Democratic County Central Committee will look like, more or less.

The top 12 right now:

Bierman, Campos, Katz, Wiener, Thier, Spanjian, Goldstein, Haaland, Barnes, Crowley, Mandleman, Julian.

On the cusp: Cassiol, Paulson, Martinez, and Galbreath.

Pretty close to the Guardian slate.

By Tim Redmond
Well, we keep crunching numbers here, and they keep looking grim for Janet Reilly. The latest, with more than half the votes in, shows Ma getting almost 60 percent of the election-day vote. Combined with her strong absentees, I think Ma is the clear winner here.

Fun facts: In San Francisco, Angelides is at 51 percent, and Westly is at 43 percent, so Carole Migden's guy is getting trounced on her home turf.

By Tina Rodia
At Fiona Ma party, Irish Cultural Center

At 9:09 p.m., with 17 percent of the precincts reporting, Fiona Ma already had 59 percent of the votes. Supporters at the party, which is about 300 people large, include the Arab Antidiscrimination Association, the organizers for the North Beach Festival, and members of the Outer Sunset community, where Ma is the district supervisor.

The organizers of the North Beach Festival refer to the State Assembly District 12 candidate as "Fabulous Fiona." With drinks in hand, they are celebrating an early victory.

Approached by members of the media as she entered the room, Ma made statements regurgitating the standard "home ownership and business revenue are what's good for San Francisco" talking points from her campaign Web site, her political mentor, former state senator John Burton, at her side.

By Steven T. Jones
The mood at Canvas Cafe is a little glum and doesn't seem to fit the artsy, airy interior. They all know that it's over, and they can't stand to have lost to someone like Fiona Ma and the dirty campaign people fought on her behalf. Janet and Clint Reilly aren't here yet, so I'll keep this brief, with just one quote that seems to sum up the feelings of many of these volunteers, who fought hard to overcome Ma's early lead and establishment support. "When you work hard for the right reasons, it really sucks to lose the good ones, like tonight," said Alex Morrison, whom the campaign knows as Mo.

More after I write up the inspirational scene at the Prop. A party I just came from.

By Tim Redmond
At City Hall

This was an excellent night for labor and tenants, and to a certain extent, for Gavin Newsom. It was a lousy night for Carole Migden, Tony Hall, Joe O'Donoghue, and Clint Reilly.

By Steven T. Jones
Sharen Hewitt -- the SF activist perhaps most associated with finding solutions to street violence -- was being honored with a rose when I walked into the Prop. A party at Powell's Place in the Fillmore. The barbecue smelled great, and when Sharen came toward the back of a room filled with multihued activists and community leaders, she encouraged me to dig in. It was delicious, and the program that followed was inspirational -- and marked by a poignant reminder of what this campaign was about. For less than an hour later, Hewitt left the table with her three grandchildren and the room filled with her kindred spirits to attend to business: Another 16-year-old kid had been shot on Sunnydale Avenue and was on his way to the hospital.

By Tim Redmond
City Hall

Prop. A seems to be falling behind, although an hour ago it looked like a winner. A very sound measure addressing a real civic crisis -- and it goes down because the cops try to make it about Chris Daly (who had a bad night, too).

Ugh.

By Steven T. Jones
Janet Reilly finally came to the stage just before 10:30 to concede a race that wasn't as close as many expected. "I am so proud of our efforts today and what we did over the course of this campaign," she said through a newscaster's smile that masked her obvious disappointment. "We were bold and courageous, we were innovative, and we did take chances."

In the end, though, the Ma machine was just too much, something she didn't say, not mentioning her opponent. Instead she ran through a long list of "thank yous," starting with her tireless campaign manager Alex Laskey and ending with her husband, controversial political consultant Clint Reilly, whom her opponents and most journalists tried to put the focus on throughout the campaign. "Thank you for believing in me," she said to him. And then she addressed the whole group: "Thank you for standing up for change. You will forever be in my heart."

By G.W. Schulz
At Mike Nevin's Election Party

At District 8 State Senate candidate Mike Nevin's election party, the mood is subdued. At the front of the wood-paneled meeting hall of the Steam Fitters, Plumbers, and Refrigerator Fitters Local 467 in Burlingame, an eraser board shows opponent Leland Yee ahead by 11 percentage points, with 50 percent of precincts reporting.

Nevin supporters chant, "I like Mike," but the outcome seems inevitable to everyone, including Nevin.

After a series of supporters and campaign volunteers make short speeches, Nevin appears before the crowd with his family and declares, "Only 50 percent of the votes are in, but I've always been a pretty good counter all of my life, and I'm pretty aware of what's going on tonight."

He goes on to thank his campaign staff; his wife jokes that her husband has been endorsed by God, the Pope, and even, somehow, Yee.

"One thing people have always said about me is that I have political purpose," he says, adding that that's why he pursued the now more than two-years-long campaign.

By Sarah Phelan
At Ron Dellums Party, Kimball's Carnival

Leaving San Francisco, we could feel the temperature rise as we crossed the Bay Bridge. By the time we got to Kimball's, the party for Ron Dellums was absolutely raging.

Dellums is beating Ignacio De La Fuente 44 to 36 percent in the race for mayor of Oakland, but with only 1 percent of precincts reporting, the outcome is far from clear. Nevertheless, Dellums was looking relaxed and stately.

By Steven T. Jones
The biggest heartbreak on election day -- Measure A being defeated by just over 1,000 votes -- should become the biggest opportunity for progressives now that this election is done. This measure was an effort to get needed funds into social programs that would deter street violence and, equally important, to get the communities of color and street-level activists most affected by this problem involved in finding solutions. Blame for this measure's defeat falls squarely on Mayor Gavin Newsom, his four supporters on the Board of Supervisors (plus Sup. Jake McGoldrick, who was on the wrong side of this one), and the Police Officers Association (and to an unknown degree, whoever attacked and crashed the Guardian site yesterday and kept our endorsements unavailable for much of the day). It's understandable why the POA wants to pursue only a top-down, more-cops approach to the high murder rate. But what's unfathomable to me is why Newsom and his political allies continue to do nothing to reform a Police Department that is dysfunctional, arrogant, and understandably doesn't have the confidence the parts of the community with which it should be working most closely.

By G.W. Schulz
Perhaps the most obscure and complex of the four local measures that appeared on Tuesday’s ballot was Proposition D, a land-use initiative designed to prevent San Francisco County health officials from allowing the spill-over of patients diagnosed with psychiatric or behavior problems from Potrero Hill’s San Francisco General Hospital to Laguna Honda Hospital in the western section of the city. Prop. D’s opponents defeated the measure by around 45,000 votes. Curiously, however, of all Tuesday’s races, the No on Prop. D election party seemed to be the most star-studded.

By G.W. Schulz

All of Alameda County’s precincts have now reported, but absentee and provisional ballots are still not counted. The Alameda County Registrar of Voters couldn’t confirm for us how many such ballots remained.

So we won’t know for a week or two whether or not there will be a runoff between former congressman Ron Dellums and Oakland city council president Ignacio De la Fuente for the mayor’s office. But the race hardly feels tight at this point. Nancy Nadel’s 13 percentage points would likely go to Dellums in the event of a runoff, and Dellums remains 17 points beyond De La Fuente with all precincts reporting.

Mayor Jerry Brown, who’s now on his way to a November election battle with unrivaled Republican primary winner Chuck Poochigian for the state attorney general’s office, rarely shied away from corporate developers in Oakland. Entire neighborhoods have been transformed in just a few years with swanky artist loft spaces and corporate box stores sprouting up everywhere.

De La Fuente was viewed as the candidate who would continue that trend. Dellums offers a very different vision.

By Steven T. Jones
Pollster David Binder's day-after election luncheon at SPUR is a tradition of the season and a must-attend for the wonkiest of political wonks. Among his insights:
* In an otherwise lackluster election, the Ma-Reilly Assembly race increased turnout on the more-conservative westside of San Francisco, thus hurting progressive measures like Measures A (which barely lost...probably) and B (which won, but not by as much as Binder and others predicted)
* There are still 40,000-60,000 absentee and provisional ballots to be counted in San Francisco, meaning Measure A (which was losing by a little over 1,000 words) could still flip, although Binder considers it unlikely given that absentee ballots in this race favored the "no" position.
* For its liberal reputation, San Franciscans are still fairly fiscally conservative and resist spending money. But we still support markedly more liberal candidates than the rest of the state.
* It was a good night for Asians and a bad night for wives seeking to replace their politician husbands.
* Democrats might have a hard time this fall keeping control of the statewide offices.

By Tim Redmond

Amazing, but not unexpected: Steve Westly joined with Phil Angelides today in L.A. to announce a unified campaign for the fall. Westly, who had blasted Angelides for allegedly dumping waste into Lake Tahoe, called him " a brilliant man" who is "comitted to environmental values."
It was a good move for Westly to be gracious, but it's a little late for that sort of thing: Schwarzenegger is already gathering up all the negative stuff Westly threw at Angelides, and we'll see it all again in the fall.
The good news is that the voters will have already been exposed to this stuff once (and while it may have supressed turnout a bit, it clearly didn't damage Angelides fatally). So when the Guv tries to bring it all up again -- "Angelides wants to raise your taxes, Angelides got money from developers, Angelides is a dork," whatever -- the public will be sick of it.
Schwarzenegger is still very, very vulnerable, and will be counting on his big bond measure this fall to carry him. Already, he's talking about how he wants to rebuild California for the future. The advantage Angelides has is that unlike Westly, he can point to some very clear and different policy positions. He's not Arnold -- and right now, that's a big thing.

By G.W. Schulz
With all districts reporting, Sandré Swanson has overcome Oakland city attorney John Russo by 7 percentage points in his primary bid for the 16th Assembly District, which Wilma Chan has held since 2000 and is out due to term limits. District 16 otherwise looks to be uncontested in the general election.
Russo served on the Oakland City Council during the 90s before becoming that Oakland’s first elected city attorney after Jerry Brown’s strong-mayor initiative put the office out for a vote. He made a name for himself in part by filing a nuisance action against Caltrans to force the transportation agency to clean up trash and debris along its properties and by taking on “problem liquor stores.”

As you've probably noticed, our site is still down. We're working on it right now and trying to get it back up and running today. Bear with us; we'll be back soon.

We're still trying to repair whatever damage was done to our site by an apparent attack, but in the meantime, the Best of the Bay Readers Poll is ready to use. You can get to it here