Richmond District Democratic Club

RDDC ENDORSEMENT MEETING SEPTEMBER 27, 2007

Thanks to Susan Hall’s great organizing skills, the Club had still another well-organized and highly-informative set of presentations by many of the candidates as well as proponents (both For and Against) the 11 Ballot measures that San Franciscans will vote on during the Nov. 6, 2007 Municipal Elections. Our Endorsement meeting was well attended, actually with standing room only for much of the time.

Both candidates for Sheriff (Michael Hennesy and David Wong) made excellent presentations as well as four of the candidates for Mayor (Wilma Pang, Lonnie Holmes, Quintin Mecke and Chicken John Rinaldi) who conveyed a wide range of unique insights into the values shared in our City. The incumbent Mayor Newsom was represented by his Campaign Manager and RDDC Club member Tom Hsieh.

After almost all of the initial presentations there were insightful questions and comments from our members and guests. Probably, in one way or another (such as casting of votes), all attendees left the RDDC meeting with the warm sense that at least to some extent they’d had a chance to “Get their 2 cents worth in,” although perhaps the outcomes of all voting were not exactly the way each individual had hoped. The final tallies are shown in the accompanying table for Candidates and the eleven Ballot Measures. Herewith is our club’s Slate Card for the Nov. 6, 2007 Municipal Election. We will not be mailing out a slate card for this particular election

Perhaps the most interesting result is that two mayoral candidates ( Gavin Newsom and challenger Quintin Mecke) ended in a dead heat, despite our having used the Ranked Choice voting method (in order to assure that any members who needed to get home at an early hour had full opportunity to show preference amongst the candidates).

Also of note at the meeting was that in several instances where Pro/Con presenters were no-shows, several of our own members ( including Jean Fraser, Ian King, Sacha Ielmorini, etc) were able to stand up and share with us their own expertise on some of the complex issues. You have all done the Club Proud; it’s great to be associated with so many smart and articulate Democrats!

Kaye Burke, Dee Rosenfeld, Richard Hansen (RDDC president), Joanne Marlowe and Shirley Hansn (RDDC board member), team up to register voters.

Another beautiful day at Masonic Auditorium. Democratic participants this time were: Alec Bash, Kaye Burke, Dee Rosenfeld, Elsa Davis, Hansens. Next date is Tuesday November 6th, Election Day! Don’t forget to vote, and come to Masonic for the fun!

We “competed” against about a dozen well-dressed Republicans — but no shouting matches nor fist fights.

Box score for today is:

80 Total Registrants

66 - Democrats

20 - San Francisco Dems (all with phone, 13 Absentee Voters)

46 - Outside S.F Dems. (42 with phone, 25 Absentee Voters)

10 - Decline to State

2 - Republican

1 - “other” party

1 - no party chosen

Again, we hope to see you all on election day, Nov 6th! There will be no representatives from San Francisco’s Elections Department on that day (working inside the auditorium) so we (the Dems) will need a larger crew.

Richard & Shirley