By Steven T. Jones

Pollster David Binder was about to begin his regular election post-mortem in the SPUR offices this afternoon when I ran into Mayor Gavin Newsom’s press secretary, Peter Ragone. “Not a very good night for the mayor, huh?” I noted.
But rather than admitting the obvious, Ragone began to spin and dissemble like crazy, shrugging off the defeats of supervisorial candidates Rob Black and Doug Chan – who Newson endorsed and campaigned heavily for – and the approval of a slate of progressive ballot measures that the centrist mayor opposed. Read more »

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By Steven T. Jones
Jimmy Carter said something truly remarkable on National Public Radio last night. The segment was about how the former U.S. president and his Carter Center are monitoring the elections in Nicaragua, just as they have in 67 other elections around the world over the last two decades.
For her final question, NPR’s Debbie Elliott asked about repeated voting irregularities here in the U.S. and whether maybe we should have international monitors to ensure our elections are free and fair. Read more »

By Steven T. Jones
I spoke recently with Warren Hellman, the San Francisco investment banker that Business Week called “the Warren Buffet of the West Coast.” He’s a fascinating guy, someone who has drawn the ire of progressives by founding the downtown groups Committee on Jobs and SFSOS, but who has also joined with progressives to support the Healthy Saturdays closures in Golden Gate Park and other measures.
Among other topics, Hellman talked about SFSOS, which is leading the nasty and deceptive attacks on Sup. Read more »

By Steven T. Jones
Re-reading the article I linked to in my last post reminded me to remind y'all about an event from earlier this year that goes to the heart of Rob Black's close ties to downtown developers and why he can't be trusted. Read more »

By Steven T. Jones
There's a fascinating mix of videos about Sup. Chris Daly on You Tube these days. You can hear Chris speak or people speak about him, or you can watch political ads with stark contrasts between the Daly lovers and haters. The ads for him are funny and whimsical, the ones hitting him are dark, scary, misleading, and in one case, racist. Read more »