Board copies Nader's moves

The latest Pew poll quantifies the bump Bush received from a week of Gipperporn.

Bush is now neck-and-neck with Kerry, until the pollsters did the Nader ask and then Bush pulls ahead by four points.

Idiot Fringe

Stupid is stupid. It doesn't matter if it comes from the ultra-extreme left or the ultra-extreme right, stupid is stupid. I've often heard the best analogy being that the political spectrum isn't a line, rather it is a horse-shoe and if you go far enough either way, you almost come back around.

Ralph Nader has soiled his solid reputation as a consumer crusader by becoming the spokesman for stupid on left. In 2000, Nader ran for President because he said there would be no difference between a Bush administration and our eight years of Clinton/Gore. A campaign with such a platform captured 24,819 lemmings in San Francisco. This is the San Francisco idiot left. [Note: After his experience with the Green Party in 2000, even Nader realized they are too ineffective to even bother with. This year he is running his spoiler bid as an independent.]

Apparently, the numbers haven't changed that much. The most recent public poll said 10% of San Francisco voters were unhappy with Mayor Gavin Newsom (the gay-marriage mayor isn't "progressive" enough). That 10% fringe left appears to have given up on progressing a viable agenda, instead they focus on using the Nader method of stopping progress in an attempt to inflate their political standing.

Rooming with Nader

This year's Housing Bond is an excellent example of the Board of Supervisors playing spoiler. A lack of affordable housing is one of the most pressing issues facing San Francisco. San Franciscans are forced to allocate an unsound percentage of take-home pay for housing. This pinch on disposable income is a major obstacle to businesses locating in San Francisco -- it has the same effect as if the companies paid their workers far less. Many San Franciscans have been forced out of the City due to the extreme costs of housing.

San Francisco is in desperate need of a housing bond. Yet the ten-percent fringe has adopted a "my way or the highway" approach to a matter that requires 2/3 of the vote for approval. In this case, the highway is permanent displacement.

A housing bond is a necessary first step to alleviate our housing woes. So why are the fringe lefters and some members of the Board of Supervisors working so diligently to kill the bonds chances of passage?

Politics over Policy

Many of the "progressive" members of the Board of Supervisors would rather cement their standing with the ten percent fringe than work with the popular mayor to help alleviate our housing crisis.

Board President Matt Gonzalez seems bent making the bond FUBAR. The front page coverage of his antics have linked the issue to Gonzalez with San Franciscans in a profound way.

This fall's election is only months before Supervisor Gonzalez retires from public service. If the bond does not pass, history will blame Gonzalez for the defeat and he will finish his career in disgrace.

Gonzalez obviously hasn't learned the lesson of Supervisor Tom Ammiano who four years before him peaked with a "once in a lifetime" mayoral bid and has since fallen from the progressive pedestal.

San Francisco needs affordable housing more than the ten percent fringe needs a hero. But that would require compromise and cooperation, which the ten percent fringe consider to be selling out and treason.

Karma seems to have noticed and this fall's elections for the Board of Supervisors are likely to be a referendum on how well the incumbents cooperate with the astonishingly popular mayor to solve problems. San Francisco elected the current Board as a check on Mayor Brown and having served that purpose they will be discarded if they are unable to prove that they have another use.

Hopefully the bond won't be thrown out with the Board.

- Bob Brigham
Bob Brigham Politics: Bay to the Beltway
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