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APA Representation Maintained on the Board

Fiona Ma celebrates victory after a tough campaign. Photo by May Chow.

Progressives suffer a loss in District 8

By May Chow and Neela Banerjee | AsianWeek

With a victory for Fiona Ma and Bevan Dufty, Tuesday’s run-off election retained the sole Asian Pacific American supervisor on San Francisco’s Board and tipped the scales away from a progressive majority.

The Sun Rises Again for APAs

In District 4, the Sunset, nine candidates had originally been vying for Supervisor Leland Yee’s seat, which he vacated when elected to the State Assembly. Yee had been the only APA on the Board since 2001. Though it was expected that Ma would receive the Chinese American support in the district, guaranteeing her victory against opponent Ron Dudum, she says she was never overconfident.

“I want to thank everyone who stuck with me throughout this whole time because there was a lot of negativity surrounding this campaign,” Ma said. “There were times when it was very hard, but we never lost hope and I have to thank my family, staff and volunteers for pushing me through this.”

Ma won the race by 11 percentage points.

The hotly contested seat for District 4 Supervisor pitted Ma against three other Asian Pacific candidates — Ed Jew, Andrew Lee and Marks Lam. Many had feared that with four APAs running against each other in a nine-candidate race, there was a chance that they would end up canceling each other out. The APA community in the Sunset — which makes up 53 percent of district — was worried that with Yee leaving for Sacramento, they would be left with no APA voice.

A Chinese American Voter Education Committee (CAVEC) poll conducted last summer had all four APA candidates tied. That’s why voters like Sherman Tang made great efforts to elect an APA candidate. But Tang said he just didn’t vote for any APA.

“I felt that Fiona, regardless of whether or not she was APA, was the most qualified candidate,” said Tang who’s lived on 23rd Ave. for the past 26 years. “She has the experience to carry out this position. She’s been helping out people for some time now, and she’s done a lot for senior citizens. She understands this area and knows what to do to help make the Sunset better.”

Even though 18-year-old Kevin Nguyen is busy finishing up his senior year at George Washington High School, he has been volunteering for Ma since this spring. He said she has been an inspiration and role model for him.

“She’s APA, she’s one of us,” said Nguyen, who hopes to go to the University of San Francisco. “She’s made me energetic and excited about politics and I hope to one day become a politician of some kind.”

Ma’s grassroots campaign was up against a well-funded campaign, according to Ben Tulchin, of Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin and Associates, who did the polling for CAVEC for District 4.

“It’s pretty big to win by that big of a margin with that amount of money coming in [Dudum’s] campaign,” Tulchin said. “Dudum received a lot of last minute donations for his campaign. She came through incredibly and kept the momentum going.”

David Lee, executive director of CAVEC, said Dudum received $10,000 from the Golden Gate Restaurant Association and also had money coming in from Southern California.

“Despite the negative campaigning from Dudum and the money disadvantage, Ma came through,” Lee said.

Tang said he got his whole family to vote for Ma.

“We live in the Sunset where there’s a huge APA community, if there’s no APA to represent us it’s a real shame,” he said. “It wouldn’t be fair because no one would speak up for us and really understand our needs as APA people. At least now, we have a single voice.”

Supervisors Aaron Peskin, Mark Leno and Chris Daly came out to support Ma and to congratulate her on a job well done.

“I chose to endorse Fiona not only because I knew she was going to win, but because she’s a compassionate person who works hard for the people,” said Peskin.

A Progressive Loss

Bevan Dufty celebrates his victory with Miss 2002 GAPA Dawn Avunuday. Photo by Jennie Sue.

Eileen Hansen says progressives can’t give up. Photo by Jennie Sue.

“You know, I’ve never run a marathon in my life and I knew this was going to be a marathon,” Dufty said about the race. “I thought it was going to be a physical marathon but it turned out to be a spiritual marathon. I felt like the voters wanted to be talked to in an intelligent way.”

Dufty said even though his district has a small APA population, he knows he had tremendous support from the APA community, especially the Chinese American community.

“I know this is a community that has suffered under the district election scenario, going from three [supervisors] down to one, and I’m so pleased that Fiona won tonight,” he said. “I feel a really strong sense of responsibility to ensure that 35 percent of our community is spoken to.”

Dufty feels that his political vision is in line with the APA community.

“I value and treasure home ownership, I believe in small business, I believe we can do a better job with homelessness,” he said. “I am a moderate by San Francisco standards and I think that’s where the Asian American community is.”

Yet Dufty refuses to play into machine/anti-machine politics that characterized the race, insisting that he is not really a moderate.

“I’m not really into labels. I believe I’ve worked on many things that you might label progressive. I’ve fought to impose economic sanctions against apartheid in South Africa, I’ve fought for Affirmative Action, minority business participation,” he said. “But things have gotten off track here and the so-called progressives are very regressive in many respects. So I feel as a true progressive, I speak to those who are too.”

Meanwhile, the mood was grim across the street at the Eileen Hansen party. One long time activist said that he felt Dufty had sold out the Castro. Supervisors Chris Daly and Matt Gonzalez were just a few among the who’s who of progressives present, giving support to Hansen.

Hansen had not yet conceded the election on Tuesday night, saying she would wait until all the votes were counted since she was just 1,000 votes behind.

About the pessimism, Hansen said that it was the last thing she wanted the community to feel. Quoting long-time San Francisco labor and queer activist Howard Wallace, Hansen said: “The struggle is fought on many fronts and electoral politics is just one of them.”

Hansen believes that the progressive community must re-double their efforts.

“There are so many fronts we need to be working on, as organizers there are so many things that need to be done. We need to go on and keep going and keep fightingk,” she said.