Good endorsements except for the presidential pick. It is irresponsible to endorse Obama considering that he supports a troop build-up in Afghanistan, talks of Iran as an enemy, and votes for corporate bailouts.

How much money have the bank contributed to Mr. O's campaign?

Endorse war and economic collapse if you please but I expect more progressive attitudes from the Bay Guardian.

You're not "impressed" with Ngo's candidacy? He's gotten some of the broadest support of any candidate in SF (everyone from Gavin to Peskin to SEIU). He's raised more money, by a longshot, than any of the other candidates. He's young, progressive, reasonable, and would be the first vietnamese elected in SF.

And I'm a little confused what his stance on the clean energy act has to do with being a community college board member. Shouldn't you judge the candidates on what they want to do in the office they are running for?

You're not "impressed" with Ngo's candidacy? He's gotten some of the broadest support of any candidate in SF (everyone from Gavin to Peskin to SEIU). He's raised more money, by a longshot, than any of the other candidates. He's young, progressive, reasonable, and would be the first vietnamese elected in SF.

And I'm a little confused what his stance on the clean energy act has to do with being a community college board member. Shouldn't you judge the candidates on what they want to do in the office they are running for?

With due respect to the Guardian news staff, I feel compelled to comment on your '08 endorsements. Putting your surprising second and third place endorsements of Eric and Mark in D9 aside for now (I'm surprised you didn't endorse them as equals and decided to play politics), I have to comment on your dismissive rejection of Steve Ngo's candidacy for the Community College Board.

First, let me share that I could honestly care less whether Mr. Ngo wins or loses and agree with you wholeheartedly that all of the current board members should be thrown to the curb due to the lack of accountability and rampant abuse at City College. Further, I support Prop H - fatherf*ck PG&E!

I also want you to know that I have eagerly read, been educated by, and used SFBG's endorsements and political commentary as my (and my students') guide for an informed vote for over 15 years now. I deeply respect SFBG's thorough and critical analysis of the issues and the candidates. I say all that because, since I am writing for the first time after loving you all blindly for so long, I hope that you don't simply do what I have noticed becoming REAL popular recently, which is to paint ANYONE who voices any dissent as being in PG&E/developers' pockets, being self-interested, etc.

I love this City and care about the issues and the people who are elected to represent our voiceless communities just as you do and hope you will take and give respect to my comments in that light.

After listening to every single one of your endorsement interview recordings, I was shocked to read your dismissive and rather arrogant handling of Steve Ngo's candidacy. Again, please know that I could care less whether this guy ultimately gets elected or not, and that I obviously have some differences of opinion regarding important policy matters with him.

BUT, first, I have to say that I found your interview with him to be appalling! After years of cringing (or grinning) while listening to or reading you hold candidates accountable, I was disgusted by your ravenous "interview" of Mr. Ngo - I know we have become worse than the right in some ways by applying divisive litmus tests even to our fragile and disparate progressive collective, but I could not believe how rude you all were with respect to Prop H. I find it to be the highest form of hypocrisy for us who criticize the right for quelling dissent to then make wild, baseless and unnecessarily aggressive allegations toward another potentially progressive candidate ourselves.

I could not believe that you repeatedly and voraciously asked Mr. Ngo who had gotten to him at PG&E, whose pockets he was in at PG&E, why he was puppeting their lines, accusing him without any stated basis of being a Willie Brown/PG&E candidate, etc., while he calmly and respectfully, yet vehemently, denied these accusations and tried to have an honest dialogue with you about the issues. AGAIN, I disagree with Mr. Ngo on Prop H and know that his name has been used to endorse the reprehensible No on H campaign. BUT, what the HELL does the Clean Energy Act have to do with serving on the Community College Board? Even in the context of green jobs and environmental issues in general, I think that there were much more relevant and weighty questions you hyper-educated, well-read and politically savvy brothers could have asked that are much more important to the community college board. So, you gave him some hell and made some incredibly inappropriate accusations about him – why couldn’t you then use your time to get in to some more substantive issues with him? Are you really this jaded, this entrenched, and this much of a hypocrite so as to inexcusably be complicit in doing precisely what we (correctly) criticize the right for doing? And, did candidates such as Chris Jackson (who SUPPORTS H and just so happens to work at the Labor Council which was – wrongly – NEUTRAL on H) deserve the disgusting and arrogant manner in which you treated and spoke to him regarding this issue, even though you sounded like you were going to start playing pat-a-cake with him by the end of the interview, not even pretending to veil your assumptions, biases, and presumptive associations about him? I could not believe what I was hearing – are you all really this simple after all: we apply a set of litmus tests and inject wedge issues into key races when we feel like we might not be able to control a particular candidate?

The interview itself aside, my eyes almost popped out of my head when I read your one-line, "we weren't impressed by his candidacy" comment/"analysis". Excuse me, but who the hell are you?! I mean, really! "Not impressed"?! Anyone who listens to the tape will note that for about 80% of the dialogue, you all were salivating over Mr. Ngo’s educated and reasoned answers, and literally stated that he is "saying all the right things." Just as is noted in your endorsement article, it seems as simple as coming down to just one difference on an issue that (although admittedly important) has nothing to do with serving on the community college board.

Listening to the interviews, you were quite impressed by Mr. Ngo’s idea for an inspector general, which it seemed you even began injecting into your follow-up questions with the other candidates. It seemed that you were impressed as I was with his ideas for bringing accountability to the Board, his ideas for increasing funding, his key programmatic initiatives, etc. Then, where the hell did, "we weren’t impressed by his candidacy," come from?!

As usual, your great interviews with some of the candidates caused me to read up more on each of them, including Mr. Ngo. From my understanding, he comes from a refugee family, where his late mother worked as a nail salon technician after taking community college classes, which seems to serve as some of Mr. Ngo’s motivation for running for community college board. It looks like he is a civil rights lawyer and shares surprisingly broard support (his endorsements range from Assemblymen Warren Furutani to Gavi, Kamala Harris, Jeff Adachi, Eric Mar, Aaron Peskin, Tom Ammiano, David Campos, and David Chiu, to the San Francisco Democratic Party, SEIU and the Tenant Associations Coalition PAC). It also seems that he has raised an impressive amount of money (more than all the other candidates for the community college seats combined) through new sources of funding – I don’t recognize his contributions as coming from entrenched interests on the left or the right, which I find to be refreshing and indicative of someone who might just represent change that the Board desperately needs. He seems on the right side of most issues and has important fiscal oversight and management experience as a former state budget consultant. So, again, I’m left wondering, where the hell did you come up with, "we weren't impressed by his candidacy". I’m so happy I don’t know this guy personally so I can finally ask you without a care in the world what happens to him: in what way imaginable can you legitimately claim his candidacy is unimpressive? To the contrary, it seems like his candidacy defines impressiveness for a first-time candidate. Now, I would be TOTALLY fine with you not endorsing him and explaining fair and logical reasons why, but I just can’t and won’t accept your unacceptable one-liner that his candidacy is unimpressive, especially after having spent more than a half-hour of my life listening to the three of you fall in love with him and then turning into sworn enemies as soon as the issue of H was brought up. So, that makes me wonder whether all your critics are right when they say that SFBG is just as bad as everyone else it criticizes in injecting issues such as H into campaigns every election cycle to impact the campaign and, in my opinion, attempt to thereby control the candidates running.

I have to call you out for one other MAJOR shortcoming in your analysis of the community college board race: the ONE issue that was very real and important relating to the Board was the Chinatown campus. You discussed it at length with all the candidates and again had a very unnecessarily confrontational and paternalistic conversation with Mr. Ngo about this issue. However, there is not ONE WORD mentioned in your endorsement article regarding the campus. Now, how is that, and WHY is that? Again, are you really as bad as everyone else on the right who is so divisive in that you couldn’t possibly see past H? Doesn’t this really confirm the ridiculous criticisms of the Guardian as a rag that uses its incredibly powerful and vital forum to select wedge issues to exercise its control over SF’s political landscape instead of truly representing "the people"?

And, that brings me to my final point and the one I decided to write in for the very first time because of: your total disregard for the racial dynamics at SFBG and how your perspective and advocacy is framed because of it. (1) After listening to you sh!t all over Mr. Ngo, I decided to look up your pictures to put a face next to the violent and vitriolic words I was hearing. I could not believe my eyes when I saw that all three of you are white men (who aren’t necessarily in your teens anymore) scolding a young, brown man who grew up on welfare in the New Orleans projects! (2) So, when you say "the people", who the hell could you be representing when you didn’t have ONE person of color interviewing Mr. Ngo or the other candidates? Noting, for the first time, that sense of entitlement and elitism at an institution I genuinely respect so much floored me. (3) Don’t you think that your personal background and reference point colors and might have impacted your not writing one word about the Chinatown campus, not asking about key issues that affect people of color at SF’s community college campuses, and furthermore allowed you to speak to Mr. Ngo, Mr. Jackson and others the way you allow yourself to without regard for the racial dynamics of the room? And, if such a voice was represented in the room, isn’t it possible that they may have had the capacity to see beyond our mutually shared disagreement with Mr. Ngo regarding Prop H? (4) Might having a person of color in the room also make you give consideration to facts such as the difficulty of running for citywide office in San Francisco as a Southeast Asian man and not ever being quite good enough for either the left or the right, when, in fact, you might fit into the "new" category instead as a young, smart, Vietnamese progressive candidate? So, is the fact that he’s confusing for you sufficient rationale for you to simply say you’re not impressed by his candidacy?

My brothers, after years of silence, I felt like I HAD TO write in out of love because I feel like you are doing serious damage to your institutional legitimacy by taking the approach you did this year with respect to managing the endorsement process. Your management of this endorsement cycle and Mr. Ngo’s candidacy in particular comes off as a highly respected and important institution that has begun to become increasingly irrelevant, but which is attempting to force itself back into play by injecting unnecessarily divisive wedge issues into campaigns they don’t belong in ostensibly for the purpose of being able to control the candidates once they are in.

Now, no one else dares say that to you – hearing you speak on the endorsement recordings, I am sure you put the fear of God and the Devil himself in anyone who ever dares voice dissent, so I know you won’t hear much more of what I’m writing, BUT I feel obliged to share this with you because I genuinely care. I also know that because of what you represent and because I and many others respect you so deeply and agree with you 99.9% of the time that no one else will ever voice real (familial) critiques with you. You should also think about (and not be proud of) the fact that those who actually care and know enough to provide you with this type of feedback in fact more often than not DO have personal interests and would either not voice their discontent with you for fear of retribution or because they need you in an environment where there are very few truly progressive outlets for them to communicate their message.

I REALLY THINK THAT ONCE THIS ELECTION CYCLE IS OVER, IT IS TIME FOR THE GUARDIAN STAFF TO DO SOME REAL SELF-REFLECTION AND ASSESS WHETHER YOU HAVEN’T GOTTEN A LITTLE TOO UNNECESSARILY CONFIDENT IN YOUR SENSE OF PRIVILEGE AND ENTITLEMENT, AND WHETHER YOUR CURRENT APPROACH BEST SERVES OUR COLLECTIVE INTERESTS.

It’s sad, as I type this, I feel that you are already so riled up and negative that you won’t even be able to read what I am saying or to give it the real thought it deserves. Further, I am sure you are wondering who I am, how you could smear me or delegitimize my words.

BUT, my brothers, what you should think about is that it isn’t about me: f*ck me. I’m admittedly an awful person and not very intelligent at that. It’s also not at all about Mr. Ngo. But, it’s also NOT about you! It IS about our communities, our people, the issues that plague us, and this wonderful City we have the responsibility to collectively improve through organized struggle!

I care and am vocalizing my thoughts for the first time because I think the times demand it: we are under an unrelenting attack and have shed generational blood to establish an extremely fragile and splintered progressive coalition. We all should give some serious thought to whether the type of actions we are taking continue to divide those of us who agree 99.9% of the time and who we should be helping build up, not destroy – we should give thought to the costs to our communities, our immigrants, our poor, our people of color, our tenants, our organized workers, etc. and assess whether we can afford the privilege we have afforded ourselves to be so divisive, so unnecessarily political, and so hypocritical.

I hope you will take this opportunity to breathe, reflect at least for a second and then share with us whether people like myself who love you sharing our hearts with you even matters to you anymore and whether any of this means anything to you anymore – or whether all you can see is Prop H and that Mr. Ngo was against it. I hope you can see past Prop H, past Mr. Ngo, and remember why it is that you do what you do and why so many of us who are always so quiet (either because of fearing you or because we are not generally so appalled so as to ignite us in this way) want to build you up by pointing out uninterested, personal and painful observations with you based purely out of respect and love.

In peace and solidarity.

A disappointing cave in to "realistic" politics, hope on a tightrope. You're endorsing expanding the war in Afghanistan, the disastrous policies of 'No Child Left Behind', and "bailing out" the heath care industry through Clintonesque rather than prevention, public health and a single payer plan. Two years from now, the BG will be crying about the unmet promises.

Vote for McKinney or Nadar! It's preferable to vote for what you want and not get it than vote for what you don't want and get it!

PLEASE POST THE EFFING SAMPLE BALLOT!

Meekje -- we post the effin' sample ballot every year on the cover of the issue that comes out the wednesday before the elections. I know this may be inconvenient for absentee voters, so sorry about that.

WOW.

As a native from the Bay Area I am horrified to see what has happened to our culture.

First off, THANK YOU SF BAY GUARDIAN for providing such great and detailed information. I think you guys do a great job!

Second, please stop the online rude abuse San Francisco. I appreciate we all have different opinions, and the Guardian is also entitled to theirs. I do love the exchange of different and often competing ideas.

What bothers me is that San Francisco thinks we can be rude when we are "faceless," since we don't have to deal with the consequences (like "anonymity please.") That's why we are complete a--h---- when we are in our cars, on the phone, on the forum and on our email.

Give respect, get respect...our culture used to preach it, now we ignore it.

Take a deep breath and slow down everyone. If you ask yourself "why am I so angry," you may be surprised at the real reasons.

You folks are backing Dufty for next Board president and more gentrification in the Mission? Your #1 endorsement of Campos in D9 tells me this is so.

Voted today - used your help w/ issues I'm not aware of. I did vote yes to name sewage plant after George W. as they're both full of sh*t.

I'm surprised how little attention Prop 2 is getting from Progressives. This Prop. is an amazing attempt to help animals, who suffer horribly in factory farms. I guess the economy trumps a chicken?

What happened to Who's Endorsing Whom?

It is odd at this late date that there is no endorsement for US Representative for the 9th Congressional District. Barbara Lee is the only member of congress who had the foresight and courage to vote against giving Bush the authority to send troops to Iraq. This is reason enough to send her back to the House of Representatives.