In Civic Center's Heart of the City Farmers Market on Wednesday afternoon, a half-dozen young people were handing out leaflets for Leland Yee for Mayor, including the gentleman above right who was having a difficult time convincing the gentleman on the left that Yee's promises to help the middle class in San Francisco was going to do anything for him.
I asked Gerald above why he was shilling for State Senator Leland Yee for Mayor, and the answer was that he had worked for him, and liked the man. "Good answer." When asked about candidate Jeff Adachi, Gerald said he'd worked for him too and seriously respected Adachi. With that, I decided to put Yee as third on my ranked choice ballot, mostly because he has an outside chance to beat the current Mayor Ed Lee.
As you may have heard, Ed Lee was selected at the beginning of this year in a sleazy coup d'etat by old-time power brokers as an interim, caretaker mayor when their previous puppet, former mayor Gavin Newsom, bolted for the Lieutenant Governors seat. The promise was that he would not run for Mayor in this November's election, using his incumbency as a weapon, but Lee was talked into breaking that promise and he's now the clear front-runner. The only way he can be beaten is if enough San Francisco voters follow an "Anyone But Ed Lee" strategy, imitating the voters of Oakland who did something similar to front-runner Don Perata in his election for mayor in that city.
In other words, don't vote for Lee (above center) as your first, second, or third choice for Mayor. I am voting for Jeff Adachi as my first choice, but I encourage you to vote for whoever the heck you like other than Ed Lee, who has made no pretense that he's a puppet for Willie Brown, Jr., Rose Pak, and a whole host of the most corrupt, established, pay-for-play power brokers in this city. By marking Ed Lee anywhere on the ballot, you are basically voting for four more years of the same Willie Brown/Gavin Newsom political machine which is a depressing, ugly prospect. Vote for change instead and maybe even a little hope.
7 comments:
I'm voting for Adachi too.
My second choice will probably be Mat.
What do you think of Bevin Dufty - WOAH! we just had an earthquake.
Dear Nancy: I think Dufty is a corrupt, two-faced weasel who gave us Ed Lee in the first place, but if you like him, go ahead and vote for him.
Dear TK: Go Mat!
I don't have any strong preferences but I'm glad to hear your opinion.
Good luck, San Franciscans. We dodged a bullet here in Oakland, and I can only hope your electorate is as tired of the good old boys as ours was.
I loathe and abominate ranked choice voting. Instead of having to figure out who they might really want, people are encouraged to make lightly considered choices for people they know nothing about just to fill in the blanks. So many of us can end up electing people who we wouldn't want if we'd done the work of DECIDING. Deciding is good citizenship; this ranked choice stuff reduces an election to a high school level name recognition and popularity contest.
It will not surprise you that I am an Avalos voter and I don't make second choices on principle.
Dear Jan: Nice to hear from a ranked choice loather. I would be voting for Avalos except for his dumb proposed legislation giving away the Sharp Park golf course in Pacifica. He'll still probably get my number two vote because I personally like the guy.
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