From the San Francisco Labor Council
August 30, 2008
Richmond District residents are receiving negative “push polls” by unknown opponents of Eric Mar, a two-term member of the San Francisco Board of Education who is now running for supervisor in District 1, the Richmond District.
According to credible reports from Richmond District residents, pollsters working out of the Sun Surveys Company in Miami, Florida asked a series of leading questions that distort Mar’s accomplishments and positions in a highly negative light.
Richmond District resident Sheila Tully, who received one such push poll, said “The caller claimed to be conducting a poll about the District 1 race, yet went on and on with a lot of negative, untruthful information about Eric Mar’s record as a community leader.”
In fact push polls are not really polls. They are telemarketing that pretends to be a poll. Push polls are designed to communicate negative information about an opponent in a one sided way.
According to Tim Paulson, Executive Director of the San Francisco Labor Council, “the anonymous funding source paying for the push polls is playing right out of Karl Rove’s playbook. These push polls spread disinformation and play upon fear. Its sponsors are using classic Republican Party tactics with the goal of gaining control of a seat on the Board of Supervisors at any cost.”
“Eric Mar has stood out as a public servant who honored the people he worked for by dealing honestly and fairly with issues and treating individuals with the respect they deserved,” stated Dennis Kelly, the president of San Francisco’s teachers union and a resident of District 1. “It’s sad that his opponents have stooped to these tactics.”
According to municipal code, push polls made within 60 days of an election must include information about the individuals or organizations that paid for the poll. The pollsters conducting the poll did not identify the sponsors.
“The interests paying for this push poll are skirting the spirit of the law by conducting this poll just before the 60-day deadline,” said Jane Morrison, long-time Democratic Party activist and an elected member of the Democratic County Central Committee.”
Ms. Morrison’s reference is to SEC 1.160.5 of the municipal code that regulates “persuasion” polls.
The Hunger Site
September 2, 2008 at 5:27 am
Another page out of the GOP play book is this focus on the family, the insistence that the only relevant form of citizenship begins and ends at conception and its products are insulting to the vast majority of San Franciscans who do not have kids, as if we were second class citizens.
I don’t think that any of the hundreds of thousands of childless San Franciscans have any problem paying for services for kids, but to what extent should urban families without kids be expected to subsidize the recruitment and retention of “urban pioneer” white families with kids against the demographic tides?
Apparently the role of San Francisco as a refuge of safety for LGBT from the flyover has been replaced with the suburbanization of San Francisco into a bedroom community of white Urban Pioneers and the reliably Republican politics that so many suburbs offer.
Of course, the tax whining argument cuts directly to the notion that schools are not attractive. Let the record show that under the leadership of creative progressives such as Mark Sanchez and Eric Mar, the SFUSD was able to secure voter approval a parcel tax to raise teacher pay, If you want good schools, then you need to actually pay for them with taxes.
San Franciscans, who live where there are more dogs than white kids, stepped up at 70% when asked and committed to tax ourselves for schools, against Republican opposition to paying for education. The last thing we need is the objectification of children and their use as pawns for political purposes.
-marc
September 1, 2008 at 11:28 pm
When it comes to sliming people for elected office describing the activity as Rovian is on point. As Mr. Epstein undoubtedly knows, it was Karl Rove who directed the campaign against John McCain for having an adopted daughter from Bangladesh in the 2000 South Carolina GOP primary. Compared to what would follow for Rove, that might be an ethical high water point for President Bush’s chief political advisor. Describing something as Rovian is modern political shorthand for “sleaze.” Would Epstein prefer “Nixonian” which would convey much the same meaning? He was another GOP contributor to American politics.
The truth is it may never know the “true source” behind the phony push poll effort in District 1. All that is known is that it came from a political telemarketing outfit in Miami, Florida called Sunsurveys.com.
September 1, 2008 at 9:40 am
cp0808 repeating a lie does not make it so. Sure, you can get Ed Harrington or the Ballot Simplification Committee to label a ballot measure as taking power away from the Mayor to the Board of Supervisors, but such framing does not make it so. I don’t believe that the Board of Supervisors has succeeded in passing any ballot measures that shifted power to the Board since Newsom has been in office. Please correct me with examples that demonstrate that they have, and if so, that the number of measures which bolster Board power, if any, is greater than the number which further empower the Mayor.
Brown and Newsom forced Arlene Ackerman on the SFUSD, and her autocratic style led to gridlock in governance. Once Ackerman realized that San Franciscans had elected a school board which made it known that it was for them and their constituents that Ackerman was to work, she high tailed it outta here with a chunk of change that disgraced Newsomite Heather Hiles passed after she’d been kicked off the board by the voters.
Now that Ackerman is gone, the SFUSD is experiencing a period of unprecedented smooth sailing, with the Board collaborating with the Superintendent and together, pulling back up on the stick. Kindergarten is oversubscribed, the corner has been turned and there is light at the end of the tunnel. I’d not say Mission Accomplished, but we’re certainly moving in the right direction at the SFUSD.
I’d wager that the savings on bond expenditures now that the conservative coalition can no longer direct cash flow to their favored contractors is reason enough to promote Eric to the Board of Supervisors.
Businesses pay practically no taxes in San Francisco. Business passes sales tax on to customers and only 1% of that stays in the City. Business that do pay the payroll tax diminish wages accordingly, working people pay that tax.
The conservative coalition folded on the business tax lawsuit back in 2001 and that has been proven to have been the wrong path by subsequent court rulings. The first inclination of the conservative coalition is to coddle business and screw San Francisco residents.
You prove my point that this is a conservative coalition in that you whine the Republican line on opposing taxes, and in a truly Rovian, Gingrichian, Reaganist framing deflect local business’ “high maintenance” insistence on public subsidy and protection from market forces to ensure their private profit, their refusal to pay their fair share in taxes by positing the poor as needy.
When you quack like a duck…
-marc
September 1, 2008 at 9:35 am
I’m wary of any article making a claim that then comes up completely empty on examples. In this case it would be the specific examples of “negative, untruthful information about Eric Mar’s record as a community leader.†Could it be that the negative information is Mar’s actual record?
September 1, 2008 at 8:52 am
Marc,
I am lost on what you are trying to say. Business pay taxes, Employees pay taxes, Tourists pay taxes these monies are used to provide many services to the needy in San Francisco, and to continue to blame them for the circumstances that many find themselves in is disingenuous.
As for taking power away from the Supervisors over the last 8 years, the board has consolidated and added to their power. Nearly every election cycle there is a ballot measure to give more power to the Supervisors.
Under no circumstances can you say that room 200 is a coalition of conservative Republicans and conservative Democrats. You are deluding yourself in order to perpetuate you own world view, which is out of touch with the reality that most San Francisco residence live.
This article is clearly trying to tie Eric Mar’s opponents with the Republicans, and that is just as cynical as the “push pollsâ€.
As for Eric Mar, can we honestly say he has done a good job on the School Board, not if you believe two recent polls, where families state that next to housing costs, schools are the reason they are leaving this city. I doubt Eric Mar will do a better job on Board of Supervisors than he did on the School Board.
September 1, 2008 at 7:59 am
You know, Howard, the worst thing that can be said about someone in politics is when they believe their own shit.
Our one party town is ruled in room 200 by a coalition of conservative Republicans and conservative Democrats. You all might chafe at some of the social liberties that coalition is forced to grant in order to appear in sync with San Francisco voters, but by and large, you get everything you want economically from Newsom and downtown so instead of attacking the king of same sex marriage, you attack progressives in a gesture of fealty to your patrons.
Of course, there are those pesky supervisors who can put measures on the ballot, but just as Republicans have sought the unitary executive, our local governing conservative coalition, already bulked up by the Kaufman Charter, is whittling away at what little power is left at the Board of Supervisors. Our side is making this easier, because when Sean Elsbernd says fuck you to some “progressive” supervisors, too many supervisors bend over receptively in anticipation.
Since progressives have figured out how contest and win elections over the past 8 years, the task for the conservative coalition has been to figure out how to paint progressives, who are generally in sync with the voters if measured by ballot measure and district election success in cases where swiftboat loads of money not are thrown at the desired conservative outcome, as out of sync with San Franciscans.
At this point, with elections upcoming and control of the Board of Supervisors at risk, we are seeing the conservative coalition calling political plays using the Chronicle and Newsom’s “Act Locally SF” base that come directly out of Newt Gingrich’s 1994 and Karl Rove’s Bush II playbooks.
When the voters disagree with you and agree with your opponent, you’re in a fix. So what’s going on here is an effort to convince San Franciscans to vote against their interests, just as the Republicans had a franchise on convincing voters to vote against their own economic interests. The shattered economy based on snake oil promises going back to Reagan has proven the religion of free market economics bunk. Yet our local conservative coalition sees no downside in continuing to meter out public largess in order to take its own cut.
This is happening every time Newsom issues a vacuous press release to much heralded fanfare and when nobody checks up for follow through and the issue dies.
This is happening as the word “progressive” has been banned from the Chronicle and replaced with “far left wing faction” or “ultra liberal.” When you can’t outmaneuver your opponents on the merits, simply redefine them to a place where you can appear to outmaneuver them.
It is happening when push polling takes place which does not poll, rather is a campaign expenditure trying to influence a campaign. That kind of shady campaigning is typical of those who have more money than connection to the electorate.
The most interesting part of this is that the Democrats have just undergone a generational handoff of power, and along with the generational change has come a philosophical change as to how politics is done. Of course, Kamala Harris aside, the local Democrat partners in the conservative coalition, Newsom and company, were fervent Hillary Clinton supporters.
Yet as they align with Republicans such as Howard Epstein to preserve corporate power, they are adopting part and parcel the Clinton model of triangulation against progressives. This is done by definition as noted above and by identifying wedge issues to divide the electorate for their benefit.
As we can see, Newsom is running for governor and has no interest in running the City. Services are not being delivered, the cops are running wild and ineffective–two took time to give me shit as I finished up an Amstel Light on Valencia yesterday evening as if there are not real crimes that threaten San Franciscans life and limb.
Development is being encouraged to pump up future contributors to Newsom’s aspirations, promising a future of looming luxury condos, los angeles style retail sprawl, traffic congestion, slow MUNI and displacement to the Eastern Neighborhoods.
And who is running against Mar? Sue Lee, who voted like a Republican on the Planning Commission. One might examine her form 700s, economic disclosure forms, to see how she fared while on the Planning Commission. Going from zero to $ million and a six figure salary from builders in a few years–nice work if you can get it.
But since Eric Mar is a far leftist idealogue who, along with his family and friends, has total cooties, we need to rely on the reasoned judgment of a former Planning Commissioner who appeared to have been on the take for developers.
As pay to play politics have been rejected by national rank and file Democrats in the primaries, and how history has proven the magic of the market place as noxious snake oil, how long will it take for that change in political and economic culture to trickle down to San Francisco’s governing conservative coalition?
Given the profound riches to be extracted out of San Francisco’s real estate and tourism economies, not to mention PG&E’s monopoly franchise, we can count on the conservative coalition digging in its heels to the bitter end. Just as G.W. Bush has managed to trash the US empire more thoroughly than any progressive had imagined in 7 short years, bankrupting it economically, politically and militarily, the conservative coalition is going to run San Francisco into the ground as it seeks to wring the last dollar out of the commonwealth.
-marc
August 31, 2008 at 10:28 am
Let’s get real. Trying to associate the push poll with Republicans is absurd. First, there are no Republicans in the District 1supervisorial race. The poll was commissioned by a Democrat candidate or a supporter of a Democrat candidate. Second, push polls have been used a lot longer than Carl Rove has been on the scene. Third, the election is November 4. Third, the call was not made within 60 days of the election and therefore the sponsors were not required to identify themselves and skirted no law.