District 6 Makes My Heart Pound

Heather Box

By Heather Box

October 7, 2010

Last week when I was at the League endorsement meeting, I sat there for the majority of the meeting feeling so pleased. I was so excited about how much work people had put into researching the ballot initiatives and what an awesome job Beth and Alex did preparing it all. But as we wrapped up the ballot initiatives and started to move towards San Francisco candidate races, preparing mostly for the discussion of District 6 supervisors race, my heart began to pound. It was strange, was I nervous? Was I mad? I felt sorta scared. But I just took a deep breath and tried to just acknowledge my pounding heart. But why was it pounding? I hardly ever feel like that.

As I saw the page flip to District 6, I felt a lump in my throat, will I cry? District six: upper mission, tenderloin and SOMA. The most diverse district in the city. Chris Daly’s district for the past couple terms. The place the Pissed Off Voter Guide is most recognized. And the hopeful future home to a very progressive woman supervisor. That is a big deal in San Francisco politics. There aren’t very many progressive women in San Francisco who run for Supervisor positions, especially as the front running candidate.

Well in District 6, we have two front runners: Jane Kim and Debra Walker. I really like them both, they are both incredibly dedicated, smart, passionate people and they each have always been supportive of me and of the League. I really trust them both to represent me in office and I am excited that they have both made the personal choice to run for office. But why in the same district? Why against each other? The heart pounding is coming back now as I type this. Why does this race make me feel like this?

School Board President Jane Kim.

Building Inspection Commissioner Debra Walker.

Here’s my story. Debra started running months ago, I was excited. She is sweet, smart, shows up for everything and is a good listener. I was ready to jump right into her campaign. I met with her, got a button and was ready to roll. District 6 is important to me. I had the time of my life working on Chris Daly’s re-election campaign, got to know the district really well and really got an understanding of why it is important to have a progressive in that district who is able to pass nuanced policies and be a dynamic leader that will help build bridges in the district.

A couple months after that meeting with Debra I started to hear rumors of Jane’s candidacy in the district. Jane is one of my favorite elected officials in the world– she is young and sharp and isn’t only a great person, but has proven to be an effective politician. I knew I would be supporting her one day for a supervisors race, but I didn’t think she would declare her candidacy in this race. Basically, from my limited perspective, she seemed to have the same base as Debra, a lot of the same friends and surely similar political views. I knew they couldn’t disagree on that much politically, so if Jane was going to jump in I trusted that the progressive movement agreed it was the right thing to do and we would make it into a golden opportunity to unite progressive San Franciscans around these two amazing women. It would be interesting, but because San Francisco has rank choice voting (a system where you can choose your top three candidates) if we worked it right, we would see a Progressive shoe in in that district and hopefully be part of the exciting and dynamic campaign that district deserves.

So yeah, if we were going to run two of the most viable progressive women in the whole city in the same district against each other it was important to me that something amazing came of it.

This is what I pictured: a shared office space where our resources were shared and maximized. Each candidate doing a first place vote for themselves and a second place vote for the each other. A coordinated campaign with all the progressive candidates to talk about why it’s important for District 6 to be led by a progressive and the opportunities we have in the district going forward. I pictured Saturday volunteer days where both candidates volunteers would do district clean up’s in the streets or mural projects together or bike rides around the district and campaign in coordination. Yeah, I know it would get a little confusing because some of us would be for Jane, some of us for Debra and some of us for the list of other impressive progressives running in District 6, but I trust we could figure out a way to explain it simply and maybe even start up some great discussions about true democracy and rank choice voting. Our hearts are all in the same place, I’m sure we could make our materials and campaign slogans reflect that.

I pictured the election night party where we all stood in the same room and watched the largest progressive margin of victory in history of San Francisco politics. I pictured Debra and Jane both speaking at the event. I saw a few down faces in the crowd and a couple awkward congratulatory hugs, but come on SF look at who we got, isn’t she wonderful?? And I pictured a speech that night by someone we all look up to, talking about how politics can be tough on a personal level but that we don’t do this for ourselves or to support our friends, we do this because we believe in something bigger, we believe a world based in love and compassion and caring for each other is possible, where policies reflect that and where we all live in community and peace. And then the person would go on to remind us how lucky we are to live in a place where people like you and me can get elected, where we can pass innovative policies that try to solve some of the most tragic problems that we all care so deeply about: homelessness, unaffordable housing, violence, drug abuse, failing school systems. Then they would bow off the stage and thank us, thank the people of San Francisco for being able to run such a dynamic campaign, look past the challenges of this candidate or that and work together to not only elect someone to carry out our vision but to start realizing that vision during the campaign, cleaning up our streets, talking to our neighbors and holding the truth high that together we are always more powerful. I was so excited to hug Julian after that speech, snuggle into him and tell him that this is why I love San Francisco so much. Then I would walk around the party looking for Jeremy, Andy and the League to give them a big hug and get that feeling I have had so many Novembers when it just feels like…’awwww group hug, we’ve done it again.’

So that is why my hands were shaking when I saw the sheet come up, because for me it wasn’t about which candidate would get our endorsement, it was that paper staring straight into my eyes mockingly questioning if my vision could ever be realized in politics. That’s why that paper made me feel sick, because instead of coming home from Asia to start sweeping the sidewalks with my friends, I came home to my computer to see my facebook friends split on the issue, to the clunky, horrible noise of the rumor mills churning and to a barrage of questions of who I am supporting?

Who am I supporting?? BOTH of them, they are fabulous and it’s a knife in my vision of a united San Francisco every time I hear one bad thing said about one or the other by people who should be supporting them. It’s hard enough to reconcile that there is no dynamic coordinated campaign to work on, but it’s actually heart pounding infuriating to me to know we are this far away from it.

FCJ Editor

More Posts