Letter from San Francisco: Politicos turning against Instant Runoff and Politics are nasty as ever
Yep, one of the "progressives" who pushed for IRV no longer believes in it. Here's a letter from a blogger who lives in San Francisco, the largest IRV jurisdiction in the country. Supervisor. Daly is one of the "progressives" who pushed for IRV. Blogger H. Brown says now Daly is against IRV because he wants to try and control votes. He even advocated "bullet voting" - something you CAN'T DO under IRV.
From: "h. brown"
Date: September 5, 2008 5:36:55 AM PDT
To: h@ludd.net
Subject: Tenants Union stabs Sanchez
Morning boys and girls,
Ed Jew won his seat in D-4 by telling all Chinese voters to ONLY vote for Chinese candidates. Ugly and racist it is true. But, it worked.
It worked because Jew realized that in a tight
race no candidate was likely to get 50% of the vote and second and third choices allowed under the City's IRV (Ranked Choice) system ...
the system could help elect a member of a 3-slate card while leaving lone wolves to die in the snow a few percentage points from the finish line (you hear me, Ron Dudum?). This
morning Fog City Journal reported that the Tenants Union will not take advantage of IRV.
Chris Daly and Ted Gullickson do not understand
this. Daly, in fact, has gone so far as to pressure the top ranked Progressive in the D-9 race (Mark Sanchez) to drop out of the race entirely so that Chris' choice (Eric Quezada) will (by Daly's reasoning) have the Progressive voter block to himself.
What Daly's tactics will do however is to insure that 'astro-turf' faux progressive David Campos will be elected. And, immediately vote for Bevan Dufty for Board President.
Daly has bragged that he controls the coveted
endorsements of both the Bay Guardian and the Tenants Union. And, that he doesn't believe in Ranked Choice voting. Ted Gullickson has joined him and the results could be disastrous for both the local Progressive movement and Daly's own shot at the Board presidency.
This is one of those 'I told you so' moments in
the making. Come January if Daly's tact fails and David Campos makes Daly the permanent Board rep to the SFUSD, I'll be saying it. "I told you so."
h.
