Election 2010: Wiener confident in D8, but Mandelman not giving up

11.02.10 - 9:21 pm | Steven T. Jones |

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D8 supervisorial candidate Scott Wiener arrives at his election night party.

Tim Daw

The mood was buoyant in Harvey’s bar in the Castro, where D8 supervisorial candidate Scott Wiener had 54 percent of the vote in early returns when he arrived around 9:30 pm. His lead over progressive candidate Rafael Mandelman has narrowed since then (45-33 percent at last count), and that campaign was still hopeful at its party at Pilsner Inn on Church Street.
“The question is does it get tight enough that the number two votes make a difference,” Mandelman told the Guardian, referring to the ranked choice election and showing hope that many of Rebecca Prozan’s second choice votes would go to him. Mandelman noted that his campaign had a solid volunteer effort and good turnout in the district. “We think it’s going to be closer than in looks right now.”
But Wiener expressed confidence that he will prevail. “I feel really good about it,” he told the Guardian. The race was fairly cordial among the candidates, but Wiener got hit pretty hard by mailers from labor and tenant groups attacking him as hostile to progressive priorities.
“It got negative toward the end, and I think that’s unfortunate, but that’s modern politics and the truth prevailed,” said Wiener, who has argued that his record of votes on tenant issue while serving on the DCCC was better that it was represented in this election. In fact, even some progressives think Wiener might be a better vote on tenant issues than incumbent Bevan Dufty, who was consistently a swing vote against tenant protection legislation.
In fact, Wiener campaign manager Adam Taylor, who is a renter, told us that he wouldn’t have worked on the campaign if he didn’t believe Wiener would stand up for renters’ rights. “We expected certain falsehoods to count out and they did,” said Taylor, who was running his first campaign in San Francisco. “I’m proud of how we kept our head held high.”

Election 2010

Comments

>>>“It got negative toward

>>>“It got negative toward the end, and I think that’s unfortunate, but that’s modern politics and the truth prevailed,” said Wiener...<<<...........What was "unfortunate" were the lies from Scott Wiener. How is that keeping your "head held high?" For example...

I received a letter from Wiener with the envelope labeled "TENANTS UNION ALERT." That was a lie. It was a sleazy tactic used by Wiener to get me to open the envelope. The letter inside was not from the Tenants Union. It was from Wiener. He wrote: You may have received mailings telling you that I accepted a massive contribution from Thomas Coates, a Republican landlord working to end rent control. That is a bald-faced lie. I have never received a contribution from Mr. Coates - not a penny, let alone a massive contribution....More important, I support rent control and will fight any attempt to end it. Period."...............Never received a contribution from Coates?...

Bay Citizen article: SF Moderates Get Late Windfall from Investor
Real-estate mogul showers San Francisco races with $200,000
http://tinyurl.com/2g258me

From Baycitizen article..."On Monday and Tuesday, Coates wrote checks totaling more than $200,000 to third-party expenditure committees for Proposition G, the initiative to reform pay for Muni workers, as well as supervisorial candidates Scott Wiener, Mark Farrell, Steve Moss and Theresa Sparks, disclosure forms filed Oct. 20 show."

Put these keywords in your search engine: wiener, thomas coates

According to the Department of Elections, it looks like well over half of the registered San Francisco voters did NOT vote. So one cannot accurately claim (not that the Guardian has done this) that "most people" want sit-lie, for example. We don't know what "most people" wanted because THEY didn't vote. With 581 out of 590 precincts (98.47%), Turnout 37.28%.

It does look like most of those WHO VOTED in D8, want someone other than Wiener (41.66%). Wiener says “I feel really good about it." LOL. What's really good to feel about the majority of those who voted in D8 wanting a candidate OTHER THAN YOU? Typical politician. Just say anything!

Posted by Guest Bárbara Chelsai on Nov. 02, 2010 @ 10:22 pm

The truth about Coates' donation

To clarify, this donation went to an independent expenditure (IE) that was campaigning in Scott's name. As an IE, Scott is not legally allowed to communicate with them in ANY way or have knowledge of their activities, not even to tell them to refuse/return the donation. Scott would not have accepted this donation had it been presented to his campaign directly. He campaigned against Prop 98 when it made the rounds, and will continue to stand up for tenant's rights and rent control. It would be stupid for him to be against rent control when 60% of the voters in D8 are renters.

Posted by Guest on Nov. 02, 2010 @ 11:17 pm

To "Guest" (from the Wiener

To "Guest" (from the Wiener campaign)....This is from the Tenant Times (August 2010)...."Both Prozan and Wiener flunked their Tenants Union questionnaires, coming out in favor of more conversions and demolitions of rent controlled apartments and against extending rent control in any way. Both even opposed modest Rent Board reform."

http://tinyurl.com/25hdskg

Posted by Guest Bárbara Chelsai on Nov. 03, 2010 @ 12:53 am

The distinction that the

The distinction that the donation went to an independent expenditure supporting Scott Weiner rather than directly to the Weiner campaign is really hair-splitting. Fine, Scott Weiner didn't go out of his way to solicit this donation, and maybe if the donation had been presented directly to him he would have rejected it. That rejection may have been based on principles or on political image making: sometimes it doesn't look good for Democrats to take money from known Republicans even if at the the end of the day they're both just capitalists. And that really is the point. Let's forget Weiner's desires and think instead of Coates'. Why would an anti-rent control real estate investor spend tens of thousands of dollars to get Scott Weiner elected? Probably because he thinks it's in his best interests, and those interests are clearly anti-tenant and anti-working class.
And just to do a little hair-splitting of my own, while a candidate can't communicate with an independent expenditure established to benefit that candidate, s/he could tell the IE to stop campaigning if they really were at moral odds.

Posted by Guest on Nov. 03, 2010 @ 5:13 pm

Mandleman - 2 out of 3 "don't want him!"

By our guest's standard - 2 out of 3 D8 residents want someone other than Rafael. Of course, you cannot apply the standard of "a lot of people didn't vote" regards L and "The people who voted" regards the D8 race.

I put Rafael on the 2nd line. That does not mean I "don't want him", it means I wanted Wiener more than I wanted Rafael. Your argument is structurally unsound.

Posted by John Murphy on Nov. 03, 2010 @ 12:56 pm