Voice of San Francisco
Good news, bad news and advice for the thoughtful voter with John Rothmann
This is John Rothman, and you are listening to the voice of San Francisco. Well, we have a president we can all agree on. That's right. Buster Posey is back as president of baseball operations at the San Francisco Giants. I think he would have won a unanimous vote of approval from all of us who care deeply about the Giants, but it's nice, isn't it, to have a living legend back, working with the Giants right there, and you know what? It's good for all of us. It makes everybody feel better, and not only that, at least Buster Posey has a job. So I'm thrilled, delighted, because this is the good news that I wanted to open with today, something positive and direct for the people of San Francisco. But now let's go to the negative, shall we? And that is the race for mayor of San Francisco. There is no doubt that the negative advertising being done by Daniel Lurie is having an impact on the race. Now, let me be clear. I like Daniel. No problem with him. I think he's very able, very capable, but I do object to the kind of campaign that is being waged. You see, here's the problem. There are two so-called moderates running, Daniel Lurie and Mark Farrell. And what is happening now is that, well, Daniel Lurie is going after Mark Farrell and Mark Farrell is responding. I wish the two of these candidates for mayor would get together and come up with practical solutions that they both agree on. Then you could have a situation where in this ranked choice voting, you could have people voting for Farrell and Lurie. But instead, Daniel Lurie has decided to go on the offensive and really blast Mark Farrell. Now, let me tell you, I've known Mark Farrell for many years. He's a good, able, public servant. He was the district two supervisor and frankly did an outstanding job. Does this campaign have to end up in the gutter? So my appeal in this podcast is for a more civil approach to the way in which we run for mayor. One of the things we at the voice of San Francisco want to do, because we don't take a stand. We're not for or against any candidate for mayor, but we want to highlight the positive things that people can agree on to make improvements in San Francisco. Let me say a word about Aaron Pescan. Aaron Pescan is a solid, able, public servant. And I want you to know I spent an hour with him and listened very carefully to a presentation he made to a group that meets regularly. And Aaron Pescan did a brilliant job. It was a thorough tour de force in terms of San Francisco politics. And I want to say a word about supervisor Safai, who I really don't know, but I think is trying to do a constructive, positive thing in his campaign. And London Breed, now you may agree or disagree with London Breed, but she is putting forth program. She is trying to make sure that she can lead San Francisco on into the future. Now, please note, I've been very neutral. I haven't endorsed the candidate because the voice of San Francisco doesn't endorse. I would rather accentuate the positive. Remember the song? I'd actually sing it, but then you'd all turn off the podcast. We need our candidates to accentuate the positive personal attacks by candidates on other candidates. Frankly, doesn't hold much water with me. So I think that we in examining the race for mayor of San Francisco should take a look constructively at where the candidates stand. And if, as I've said in the past, we can have five key candidates and we can take their platforms and figure out where they agree. Let me emphasize that where they agree. You know what? We might have a platform for a better San Francisco. That to me is the key because I love this city. So let's do away with these personal attacks. Let's stop trying to, well, demean another candidate. Let's stick to the facts. Oh, by the way, I'm not naive. I understand that people vote for and they vote against. And the simple truth is in this campaign, we have a lot of people who are voting against. I would rather see us vote for. The one last comment I would make about San Francisco is I had a number of you who asked, what did I mean yesterday when I talked about pin the tail on the donkey? It is that we are not necessarily informed enough about the candidates for particular offices. And that means we take sort of like in the tail on the donkey. We have our blindfolds on. We don't quite know what direction we're going in and we need to be better informed. So do me a favor. Do yourself a favor. Do the city a favor. Come on the candidates running for the Board of Supervisors in your district. Not every district has a candidate for the Board of Supervisors up, as you know. But take a look at the candidates who are running. If you are in such a district, make sure you vote for the person you think is best. When it comes to the Board of Education, it's very important, absolutely critical that we take a look at who the candidates are, not just their individual stands, but where they fit into the broad picture of San Francisco's educational landscape, who we elect to the Board of Education. Well, it's going to say a lot. And the same thing applies to the Community College Board. This should not be a campaign in which blindly we vote for or against a particular candidate. We should be informed. So I'll tell you what I'm doing. First of all, I've interviewed a lot of the candidates. Second of all, I've taken a look at all the endorsements. Every endorsement pamphlet that comes in the mail to see who is endorsing. And then I want to really do an evaluation because when I look at who is endorsing and what they're endorsing and I compare with what I think the city needs, I can at least form a general sense of what works and what doesn't. The same thing applies to the propositions that most of us don't ever read the propositions. What do we do? We take a look at who's doing the endorsing. And so my suggestion is that as your mailers come in, you take them, you look at them carefully, you compare and contrast, and you see where there is a consensus. And by the way, that doesn't necessarily solve the problem of your knowing intimately the candidates and where they stand on the issues. But it does give you an edge up in terms of what you may think about doing when you go to the polls. Well, I know it's not the answer, but we at the voice of San Francisco are going to try to give you as many opportunities to examine the candidates as we can. Go back into our podcast archive and you will see that I've interviewed a fair number of candidates. Listen. See what you think. And well, on November 5th, we'll make the decisions that need to be made for our wonderful City of San Francisco. This is John Rothman speaking to you as the voice of San Francisco.