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Political Potstickers

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District Election Heats Up

By Samson Wong

THE CIVIC HONDA: Conventional wisdom predicts a runoff among the major District 4 supervisorial candidates—businessmen Tom Hsieh and Ron Dudum, former District Attorney spokesperson John Shanley, and incumbent Supervisor Leland Yee. The two who make it that far will seek the support of their former rivals, most likely among the, Darryl Honda, a long-shot candidate.

The one-time video store owner would have been irrelevant in a citywide race but should not be dismissed in this year’s district election. Honda is expected to take away some of the neighborhood’s 38,000 votes from the four sure-shots. And he may even pull a surprise upset.

At his kickoff on Oct. 8, the realtor showed the depth of support—district stakeholders like homeowners and small business folks and most of his former video store employees who skipped out on the Giants/A’s baseball playoffs and 49er/Raiders football to support Honda. To compare, Honda’s kickoff exceeded or matched those of Dudum, Hsieh and Shanley. On the other hand, Yee’s campaign bash attracted a much larger crowd.

So far about 125 volunteers have distributed 38,000 Honda door hangers in the district. If Honda can sustain the effort, he can tap into a database of former video store rental customers living in the district. After all, 8,000 to 12,000 votes might win a supervisor’s seat or at least get Honda into the Dec. 12 runoff.

Honda’s campaign manager, Nicole Gore, organized the grassroots door-to-door in four days. Gore (no relation to Al) has traveled West all the way from Washington, D.C., where she works for the Ron Brown Foundation, a political campaign-training institute. Honda is a close friend of Michael Brown, the son of the late Commerce Secretary Ron Brown.

Also shaping up the operation is strategist Marc O’Hara, the manager who helped secure District Attorney Terence Hallinan’s victory against Bill Fazio last December. O’Hara, a partner in South San Francisco political firm Winning Directions, is also working on the western states mail campaign for presidential nominee Al Gore.

WHO’S IN, WHO’S OUT: What a difference a mayor’s race and district elections make at the S.F. Neighbors Association, which for over two years championed the retrofitting of the Central Freeway until a voter-approved boulevard plan won out last year. At this year’s dinner on Oct. 7, the question was “Who’s in, who’s out?”

IN: Mayor Willie Brown, special guest speaker; Supervisors Michael Yaki and Mabel Teng, two supervisors once heavily criticized by the SFNA; Majority Whip and often speculated mayoral candidate Kevin Shelley; and keynote speaker Ted Fang, publisher of the new Examiner and the Independent.

OUT: Former SFNA founder Rose Tsai and Supervisor Leland Yee, and last year’s keynote speaker, Phil Bronstein, executive editor of the old Examiner. (Tsai and Yee, along with SFNA honcho Julie Lee were champions of the Central Freeway fights until last year. Both Lee and Tsai were critics of Yaki and Teng’s landlord-tenant issues.)

SHUT UP: As City Administrator Bill Lee was giving introductory remarks for the SFNA’s “outstanding public service award,” Kevin Shelley seized the mic from Bill and gave a stern “shhhhhhh,” sounding like a school principal trying a quiet crowd of children.

“This is very, very important,” warned Shelley.

Lee deadpanned, “This is very important, frankly, because we’re going to honor Kevin Shelley today.”

NO TO NO-GROWTH: The Mayor could have pitched his growth-regulating Proposition K to the crowd of 700 at a pro-development SFNA. But instead he ripped into Sue Hestor’s rival Proposition L.

“There will be nothing else developed in this town, and your taxes will go up if Prop. L passes,” said Brown.

“You want your taxes to go up, you vote ‘yes’ on L. You want nothing else to be done in this town, you vote yes on L. You want things to stay as they are or to get better? You vote yes on K.”

ROSES ARE NOT RED: In her campaign for supervisor, Rose Tsai claims to be the only Chinese American running in District 1, slighting Supervisor Michael Yaki, who’s both Chinese and Japanese American.

WANNA FRY THE STICKER?: E-mail him at potsticker@prodigy.net or samson@sfindependent.com. Calls accepted too at 415-826-1100 ext. 23.