Poll: Most Chinese voters would support Ed Lee for SF mayor

Our interim Mayor realizes he likes the top job and that he wants to keep it, and so is planning to announce that he'll be a mayoral candidate this fall. By doing so, he'd be going back on his promise to only remain in office for a year, a promise that put him there in the first place. Ex-supervisors, like D10's Sophie Maxwell, who voted to put him into office, will be ticked, I'm sure, when he announces his candidacy. Not unexpectedly, it seems that his incumbent status would serve him very well among the city's Chinese community, leaving all other candidates in the dust. Is this just business as usual SF politics?

More from the Bay Citizen,

Yee Seeks 'Truth in Naming' on Election Ballots - Bay Citizen

From the Bay Citizen,

State Sen. Leland Yee has reintroduced a bill that would require candidates for elected office to use an accurate phoenetic interpretation of their name when it appears on Chinese, Korean or Vietnamese-lanugage ballots.

The bill comes amid concern that more and more non-Asian candidates are listing Chinese names on San Francisco ballots in an effort to appeal to the city's growing block of Chinese voters.

In this past election, for example, Malia Cohen, who was recently elected supervisor in San Francisco's District 10, was listed as "Kuo Han" on Chinese-language ballots.

Michael Nava, a third-generation Californian of Mexican descent running to become a judge on the San Francisco Superior Court, called himself Zheng-Ping Lee on the ballot. (Nava lost to Richard Ulmer).

In a statement, Yee said his bill, SB 88, "attempts to stop the last-minute, deceptive practice of using a fake name simply to deceive Asian voters to win an election."

Yee introduced a similar bill in the last legislative session, but it was vetoed by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"This unscrupulous practice should be prevented," Schwarzenegger wrote, "however, a change in state policy is unnecessary. Under current law, local election officials have the authority to address this fraudulent behavior and to set policies that are appropriate for their unique jurisdictions. For example, the director of elections in San Francisco has established a Chinese name translation policy to address concerns that improper translations were being used by candidates in local races.”

Portola Festival today

See you on San Bruno Ave today, 10AM - 4PM.

http://www.portolafestival.org/

Just got back from the festival on San Bruno, with a couple of observations... Teresa Duqué, Tony Kelly, DeWitt Lacy, Steve Moss, Lynette Sweet, Marlene Tran, Steven Weber, and Diane Wesley-Smith all had booths, while Eric Smith, Chris Jackson and Kristine Enea were there pressing the flesh. Malia Cohen was the only majorly endorsed candidate whom I didn't see there.

In talking to the candidates and voters today, one overarching theme made itself plainly clear - the candidates have GOT to show up on doorsteps and at street fairs if they want votes. Steve Weber told me that he went and knocked on a voter's door the other day, and was told that the last candidate to do so was Dan White. Dan Frickin' White, people!! A couple of voters remarked how, not only was Steve Moss at the Portola Garden Tour yesterday, but that he is at ALL the Portola and Visitacion Valley vigils and events, and really seems to get it when it comes to voter communication and engagement. Furthermore, they said that this, over everything else they're reading in the papers about him, is the most important thing to them. You get to know the people of the district by talking to them, not by sitting in a bubble thinking that you understand them or by waiting for them to come to you. This is why Tony Kelly was at the coast clean-up yesterday, to show engagement with the community. Like his politics or not, he gets out there, and that is important to voters. Like her or not, this is why Sophie Maxwell shows up to so many events, even if just to show face.

Marlene Tran, whom a couple of candidates seemed to be wooing at the League of Women Voters forum last week, made some hugely obvious points to me that only she seems to get - namely that, if you're coming to a street fair, whether you're a candidate, the SF voting commission, or a local group, KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE! A large percentage of the people in the Portola, Silver Terrace, and Vis Valley sections of D10 speak a Chinese language as their first language, and for many of them (60% according to Marlene), as their only language. Why did the city have two non-Chinese-language-speakers sitting in its booth trying to get people to register to vote? Ms Tran likely signed up more voters in ten minutes than the city did all day, because she knows her audience and can provide someone, herself in this case, to talk to the voters in a language they understand.

Candidates, the job of Supervisor is more than a full-time job. From the moment you filed papers to run, you gave up your personal lives. The jobs of candidate and supervisor are an every day affair, and what this election is showing us more than anything is who's up to the task. Showing up and answering a few questions at a forum is one thing, but what we need to see is you, the candidates, at every event, whether it be picking up trash, at a street fair, or just talking to people and telling them what you are about as you walk through their favorite park or down their favorite street with them.

If you chose not to come to one event because you have another to attend, that's fine, but instead of just blowing off a community-building street fair like the one today, you need to organize a crack team to work the events you can't so as to make sure you're represented. But if 80% of your competition is showing up to an event, you'd better do the same, and all the endorsements in the world won't keep you from being toast come election day. And those who do show up had better have a person with them who can cross a language barrier when it arises.

Chinese voters in D10 - SF Bay Citizen

My thoughts on today's post online in the SF Bay Citizen:

Asians make up over a third of the population of D10, so while the candidate forums so far have skewed heavily toward the concerns of the African-American community, Blacks make up a smaller 28% of the population in the district. Fifteen candidates in the D10 race are African-American, with only Duqué and Tran holding down the Asian fort and Moss, Enea, Weber, and Kelly the only Caucasians. It'd be nice in future elections to see greater representation from the Chinese-American community, and if anything, greater engagement of this growing population needs to be done by our next supervisor to encourage our next generation of Chinese-American leaders. One thing that comes to mind here is that the Chinese community tends to skew a little more conservative, so Progressives may need to watch their backs - Jackson's move to engage this community is a smart one.

It's a shame, really, that I haven't seen more Asian voters attending the forums, and although campaign materials are often printed in other languages, including Chinese, I worry that candidates are not reaching out to the Chinese community as much as they ought to. Hopefully the candidates will all be in attendance at next week's Visitacion Valley Community Center forum, cosponsored by the Chinese American Voter Education Committee, and will make a showing at Sunday's Portola Festival - No Folsom St Fair for any of you, I'm afraid!!