Candidate for District 6 Supervisor Theresa Sparks. Photo by Luke Thomas.
By Luke Thomas
May 3, 2010
Human Rights Commission Executive Director Theresa Sparks today doused a recent rumor suggesting she is withdrawing her candidacy in the race to replace District 6 Supervisor Chris Daly.
Sparks, who is alleged to be aligning her candidacy with moderate-conservative political factions, including Plan C, took the opportunity in her response to FCJ to stir up the political pot among the Progressive front-runner candidacies of School Board President Jane Kim, Entertainment Commissioner Jim Meko, and Building Inspections Commissioner Debra Walker.
“Why would I get out when I’m in the lead and getting stronger every day? I wouldn’t,” Sparks wrote via email.
But, here’s the kicker. Sparks says she has inside information suggesting the “progressive machine” will soon anoint just one of the Progressive candidates to the exclusion of the others.
“We’ve been hearing that the progressive machine is about to pick one candidate and kick another to the curb,” Sparks said.
Hmmm…
Luke Thomas
Luke Thomas is a former software developer and computer consultant who proudly hails from London, England. In 2001, Thomas took a yearlong sabbatical to travel and develop a photographic portfolio. Upon his return to the US, Thomas studied photojournalism to pursue a career in journalism. In 2004, Thomas worked for several neighborhood newspapers in San Francisco before accepting a partnership agreement with the SanFranciscoSentinel.com, a news website formerly covering local, state and national politics. In September 2006, Thomas launched FogCityJournal.com. The BBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, New York Times, Der Spiegel, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Magazine, 7x7, San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Bay Guardian and the San Francisco Weekly, among other publications and news outlets, have published his work. Thomas is a member of the Freelance Unit of the Pacific Media Workers Guild, TNG-CWA Local 39521 and is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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May 9, 2010 at 5:28 am
Hey h.,
Wrong again. Elaine Zamora is the only independent voice in the District 6 race. The “downtown” candidate is Teresa Sparks and everyone but you knows it.
Elaine Zamora has no political machines backing her. She is running on her well-established record of making positive, tangible changes for the neighborhoods. The residents who benefit from these improvements, and who know she will bring their neighborhood voices to City Hall, are the folks who support Elaine Zamora.
May 5, 2010 at 1:57 pm
OMG! Sounds like Ruth might support me for DCCC!
May 4, 2010 at 9:47 pm
We should stand up to all machines, their operatives, and their ideologues, whether in politics or in religion, whether on the left, the middle, or the right.
Be a voice for independent thinking, democracy, and authenticity.
May 3, 2010 at 8:14 pm
Progressive machine!
Has Sparks been partying down with Deborah Madden or what?
-marc
May 3, 2010 at 12:05 pm
Sparks is correct,
The Burton Machine has given way to the Peskin Machine and there isn’t much difference. The basic building block is a slate of candidates who kow-tow to top leadership. Challenge General Peskin at a DCCC meeting and you won’t be getting a Guardian endorsement.
Thus Bruce Brugmann ices out Hope Johnson as not having enough “experience” while endorsing a 23 year-old still covered with political afterbirth. Real difference in the two is that Hope won’t kiss Aaron or Daly’s respective bottomsides.
Sparks is also correct about the ‘secret’ meetings amongst the Prog high command whose avowed goal is to rally around a single candidate in D-6 whom you can bet your methadone will be Jane Kim. When the group started meeting well over a year ago it included even Jordana Thigpen and Terence Alan. Daly hosted those gatherings and I assume Peskin is wearing the apron these days.
Sparks is toast and should realize it. The Downtown candidate proudly wearing the Rob Black/Chris Dittenhoffer mantle is Elaine Zamora. Theresa will either gracefully resign her campaign or lose her $160k perch at HRC. Polictics can be a tough lover, sweetheart.
No surprise Brookes doesn’t know there’s not a Prog Machine. As a Green he suffers from the ‘cootie factor’ and is shut out. The only way a Green can crack the inner circle of the Prog Machine is to leave the party. Just ask Jane Kim and Ross Mirkarimi.
But this is all moot, right? I mean, because Chris Daly’s D-6 Progressive Primary is just around the corner and the thousands who flock to the poll to choose between the Candidates Daly hand picks ($5,000 table stakes for starters – he wouldn’t have qualified in 2000) … does anyone have a date yet for that election?
My candidates are Jim Meko and Debra Walker and in that order. Both have several decades in the community running businesses and contributing through leadership in community and governmental bodies.
h.
May 3, 2010 at 11:52 am
I couldn’t have said it better, Ruth! Bravo!
May 3, 2010 at 10:13 am
I don’t know any of the details of the infighting among supe wannabes in District 6. However, Theresa Sparks is correct in making reference to “the progressive machine.”
Former supe Aaron Peskin leads the machine. He started out well in politics as a congenial, good-government reformer. He was among the best of the new supes who came to power under district elections. He gave thoughtful people hope that a new era of intelligent and principled politics was at hand for the city.
For a while, the hopes were fulfilled. Sadly, however, Peskin slowly morphed into an arrogant, mean-spirited turf-builder and perk-packer. The motto of both his personal life and his politics became the famous Peskin Principle, which he coined: “Payback is a bitch.” This is the operating principle of every machine.
His principle motivation now is petty retribution against anyone who challenges his ambitions. He helped engineer the machine’s takeover of the Democratic County Central Committee. He displaced the chair, Scott Wiener – an amiable, well liked gay man – in order to further his agenda of vindictiveness.
The second in command of the machine is Chris Daly. He, too, started out well. I remember the first time I heard Daly speak. The Supreme Court had just conducted its infamous coup, making George W. Bush president, even though Al Gore had won the popular election.
There was a quick, impromptu rally in SF to protest the decision. Only a few showed up. Daly was one of them. He presented himself well and gave an an intelligent and impressive speech against the coup. There’s hope for SF, I thought.
But it was not to be. Daly morphed into one of the crudest, most foul-mouthed, vicious politicians in living memory. In the end, he became a real-estate speculator in bourgeois, suburban Fairfield, moving his family and children there. And all this, after years of opposing those who sought to make his own district safe, clean, and peaceful.
The strongest supporters of the machine are now among the most doctrinaire, anti-intellectual operatives in SF politics. Here again there is a big contrast. Progressivism in SF in the 1970s was a magnet for the most intelligent, brilliant, and inspiring people in the city. New ideas were welcomed. Creativity and intellectual verve were the order of the day.
The juice is gone now. The dried wood is left, rooted in a stony soil of recalcitrance.
The good news is that every period of decay eventually gives rise to new beginnings. And that will be the case in SF, too. New forces and faces will emerge to challenge the new machine, just as the machine arose and challenged the old machine.
May the renewal come soon.
May 3, 2010 at 10:09 am
There’s a cynical arrogance in Sparks’ tone that is really off-putting.
May 3, 2010 at 9:51 am
Note Spark’s subtle and cynical reigniting of the new Orwellian term ‘progressive machine’ in a cartoonish attempt to get us to buy into its validity.
There of course is no ‘progressive machine’ and Sparks is using baiting terms just as when the left was called out as a ‘communist conspiracy’ back in the fifties by McCarthyites.
On the contrary, we all know there is indeed a political machine in San Francisco bought and paid for by real estate developers and multinational corporate influence, which has driven our city to ruin over the past few decades. And Sparks is that machine’s foot in the door at the Board if we are stupid enough to elect her in District 6.
Challenge left baiting, and vote for a City which has a future that is not ruled by cynical money makers through Downtown Machine wannabe puppets like Sparks.