Get out and Vote, San Franciscans
If you live in San Francisco and you're a registered voter, get your ass to the polls today.
If you're already planning on voting, think about this: isn't there already enough politics of fear out there? Politics of pessimism? Find the mayoral candidate who's talking about the bright future of San Francisco and who does so without resorting to playing on your fear and xenophobia.
Angela Alioto points fingers like Arianna did, without offering anything of benefit except to herself, seemingly.
And Gavin Newsom. He's just a hateful pretty rich boy, the nasty fucker who foisted a bill intended on cleaning up the “homeless problem”, Prop N (also called “Care not Cash”) on the public, playing to fear, to the idea of threat, and by appealing to individual greed. I took to calling it “Cake not Care” or the Marie Antoinette Proposition. I remember billboards with some whiny business man complaining that he has to smell urine as he walks by an alley in downtown San Francisco. I wondered if the man could appreciate the fact that some human beings didn't have any option but to use the alley as a bathroom. So, No on Newsom for me.
I tend to take—dare I say it—an organic approach to such things. San Francisco doesn't do well with rigidity in any form, much less in her own government, so I go for the one whose politics I tend to agree with and who, most importantly to my way of thinking, is of San Francisco and not just here to win more personal power.
Me, I'm voting for Tom Ammiano. He's been here for a long time. He's seen the worst and the best of San Francisco (often they are the same thing), and he's generally a good guy. Since I moved here 10+ years ago, I have voted for Tom at every opportunity.
While I'm sure those rare bird Republicans in San Francisco will be out there voting with their stomachs, their wallets, and their cultural xenophobia, the larger population will remember more pragmatic concerns, the longer-term view and will remember the optimism that keeps fueling the fight to overcome hatred masquerading as Tradition.
California may be stuck with Arnold, but San Francisco is a world unto herself. Remember that when you vote.
I'm rarely “proud” to be an American. I have never ever been ashamed to be a San Franciscan.