Right now, D10 watchers are driving themselves crazy trying to predict the ranked choice math in a 22-candidate race. And so far it looks like it’s a toss-up between Tony Kelly, Lynette Sweet and Malia Cohen, with Steve Moss and Marlene Tran trailing in fourth and fifth place in a contest in which race, neighborhood and inter-campaign alliances will likely prove to be the decisive factors.Read more »

Why are the rich people in District 2 so scared of Chris Daly, Aaron Peskin, and other progressives? Just the hint that a supervisorial candidate like Janet Reilly might have some vague, tangential connection to a (gasp!) progressive is enough send trembles of fear through their delicate nervous systems, and to fill mailboxes with alarmist warnings of dark progressive plots.Read more »

In September, shortly after Elliot Kamin placed two political signs in the window of the condo he rents near Ocean Beach in the Richmond District, he received a letter from his property manager saying, “The signs you have posted in your window are a clear violation of the rules and regulations of the association. Please remove the signs immediately.” But now, with help of the American Civil Liberties Union, the signs are back up and Kamin is no longer being threatened with fines.Read more »

I can't stand all the fundraising e-mail blasts that fill my In Box during election season, but this one I liked. Former author and Saturday Night Live writer Al Franken has been pretty low-key since taking his U.S. Senate seat earlier this year following a close and bitter race. Now that he's getting used to the job, hopefully he'll loosen up and write more missives like this one, whose subject line was simply titled “Oatmeal.”

Dear Friend:Read more »

San Francisco’s Department of Elections had received 41,620 vote-by-mail returns so far That’s a fifth of the 210,993 vote-by-mail forms that were requested this year.
And while we don’t know which districts these folks voted in, we do know how they were registered: Over half were Democrats (24,153 votes), a quarter were decline-to-state (10,563 votes), and a fifth were Republican (5,565 votes). Read more »

As Wikileaks' Iraq war logs continue to reveal the disturbing reality of Bush's illegal war, and its founder, Julian Assange, continues to be demonized for leaking this information, military families are left wondering if their loved ones were endangered by the actions of rogue military contractors, if Iraqis were tortured by other Iraqis because of the failure of the Bush administration to crack down on this abuse—and whether the same thing is happening in Afghanistan. Read more »

Coming into work this morning, I was greeted by the sight of D10 candidate Eric Smith standing under a San Francisco Bike Coalition tent near the railroad/freeway intersection at 16th and 7th Street in Potrero Hill.

Curious, I stopped by their tent where I was greeted by a hearty handshake from Smith, and plenty of input from the Bike Coalition’s Marc Caswell and League of Conservation Voters president Amandeep Jawa about why they support Smith. Read more »

D10 candidate Malia Cohen deserves kudos for publicly confronting rumors that she was facing a foreclosure--and for vowing to be a strong advocate, in future.

“I first addressed the rumors publicly a month ago,” said Cohen, who returned to the topic of her foreclosure earlier this week at a San Francisco Housing Coalition candidate night.

You can watch the entire proceedings of the Housing Coalition’s candidate night by clicking on the video clip at the end of this post.Read more »

Did you know that you have until midnight today to register to vote? That you have until next Tuesday (Oct. 26) to request a vote-by-mail ballot?
And that you have until election night, which falls on November 2, Day of the Dead, to actually vote?

If you are not sure if you are eligible to vote, check the rules here. And then download a voter registration form here. Read more »

With only three weeks to go until the election. the dirty campaign tricks get stickier.

Top of the list of dirty tricks this week is the person(s) who pasted “Vote Malia Cohen” stickers atop the image of D10 candidate Dewitt Lacy on door hangers that the SF Democratic Party and the SF Labor Council produced  jointly for the November 2010 election. According to Lacy supporters, the offending stickers cropped up primarily on door hangers distributed on Potrero Hill, where Lacy lives, works and has a strong following. Read more »