By Steven T. Jones
District 6 supervisorial candidate Rob Black called a press conference this afternoon to accuse incumbent Sup. Chris Daly of "illegal campaigning." The charges involve the letters that Daly and other supervisors send to their constituents. Frankly, I don't have time right now to fully get into all the dimensions of this incident, which is rich with good color and hypocrisy. I'll spin the full tale for y'all tomorrow. But for now, suffice it to say that the City Attorney's Office -- which Daly checked with before sending out the letters in batches of less than 200 each -- doesn't think this is illegal. That's point one. Point two is that desperate candidates calling for a Fair Political Practices Commission investigation during the height of an election is trite, transparent, and downright cliche. But the third point is the most important. Black is a candidate that has benefitted mightly from a series of unethical, deceptive, expensive, and probably illegal attacks on Daly, many of which were orchestrated by Black's mentor and former boss, campaign attorney Jim Sutton. These are attacks that Black has refused to fully condemn or disassociate himself from. So that's what made today's press conference not just ironic, but downright amusing. Check back tomorrow when I'll have more, including good links to much of the above so you don't just have to accept my perspective on the situation.