Last Night's Democratic Party

Constant Readers,

As many of you know, I don’t really get into party politics.  Sure, I’ll go to their conventions and report back, but in San Francisco, the Democratic Party seems kind of like a superhero with no nemesis. It just sits around, ironing its cape, registering voters, and raising money for a fight that never comes. So, when I read that something interesting might actually be happening at a Democratic County Central Committee meeting, I called the girls and trotted on down there.

Here’s a quick backdrop: Supervisor Peskin is termed out at the end of this year and, well, there ain’t much else he can run for. He and Supervisor Daly (termed out in 2010) have formed a bromantic alliance to consolidate power at the DCCC – whose endorsements and support are key for anyone running for office in this town.

The first step was to pack the DCCC with Progressives. This happened in June with the “Hope" slate – a list of Progressive-endorsed candidates, 18 of whom were elected to the DCCC. When it came time to elect a new chairman of the DCCC, 13 of those 18 candidates voted for Peskin. Because there are 34 votes total at the DCCC (24 elected and 10 at-large) Peskin only needed to scare up 5 more votes. Which he did, and won 18-16.

Now, here’s what happened last night:

I got to the State building with my friends Beth Spotswood and Tara Sullivan and had to surrender my pocketknife at the metal detector. I hoped that these Gitmo maneuvers meant that things were expected to get out of hand. As we were walking in, there was a guy handing out Obama posters. “Is there some sort of Obama thing going on tonight?” I asked, hoping we weren't gonna hafta sit through some dumb agenda item.

“Well, are you in to politics?”

“Um, yeah. Just a little.”

“Do you know this is a Democratic Party meeting?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You know Obama is the Democratic Party candidate?”

Oh my god. I wanted to kill this man. Why was he talking to me like I snack on lead paint chips? Hey bro, I’m not the one handing out Obama posters as if there is a chance in hell Obama won’t win in San Francisco in an epic landslide. No, I don’t need a poster. I live here. That’s my Obama-loving message to the world. I’m here to see the bloody bitchfight between the liberals and the super-liberals, which is about as close as we get to entertaining ideological conflict in this town.

I brilliantly retorted, “Whatever” and made my way into the packed auditorium.

It was marvelous! Just a big SF Wonkstock in there! In addition to the DCCC members (which included Laura Spanjian, George Broder – who was DiFi’s proxy -  and Supervisors Daly, McGoldrick and Peskin) there was Brian Devine, Paul Hogarth, David Latterman, Brian Leubitz, Luke Klipp and Josh Sabatini, just to name a few.

Immediately I was told by several people that Fiona Ma had promised her (at-large) vote to incumbent chairman Scott Wiener but had flipped and was going to give her vote to Peskin. Why? Because Ma’s boyfriend has something before the Board of Supervisors and he needs the support of Daly, McGoldrick and Peskin for it to pass. Oh, shit! What scandal! Suddenly, I was glad they were taking away everyone’s knives.

NOTE ON THIS: Fiona Ma has always been really nice to me and I even have a “Ma Squad” button from the CDC. So I was pretty taken aback by this rumor. According to other folks, Ma only told Wiener she was mad at Peskin and never actually promised her vote to Wiener.

I sat down, looked around and began to write. Scott Wiener (whom I have never met) is 6’8”, dashing and, of course, gay. (sigh!) He was standing near his seat and already sporting the calm, solemn look that he would wear the entire night. I think he knew what the votes would be.

Dennis Herrera was on hand to swear in all the new DCCC members who had to take some oath that was longer than the Gettysburg address. Ugh! Beth was already bored and ready to leave. ("I'd be having more fun on a bench with a hobo," she whispered.)

Scott called the meeting to order and then the douchbaggery began: someone made a motion to appoint Peskin as the temporary chairman. (The temporary chair just chairs the meeting to elect a chairman. This is one of many dumbass rules that explain why the Democrats might never be in charge.) One DCCC member pointed out that in his 24 years of being on the DCCC, out of courtesy, the incumbent chairman has always been able to decide whether he or she should serve as the temporary chair during the replacement process.

Waving bye-bye to courtesy, at about 7:15, the DCCC members elected Peskin for the temporary chair. Below is how the vote went. (Hope slate endorsements in bold, Mistermayor's endorsements underlined, LGBT italics, and the number represents which democratic district the member is from. I only analyzed the elected members, not the at-large ones. If I got something wrong, please let me know.)

Peskin: Michael Bornstein [12], David Campos (running for D9) [13],  David Chiu (running for D3) [13], Chris Daly [13], Michael Goldstein [13], Robert Haaland [13], Joe Julian [13], Hene Kelly [12], Rafael Mandelman [13], Eric Mar (running for D1) [12], Jake McGoldrick [12], Aaron Peskin [13], Debra Walker [13], Tom Ammiano, Fiona Ma, Carole Migden, Betty Yee, and Leland Yee.

Scott Wiener: Tom Hsieh [12], Mary Jung [12], Leslie Katz  [13],  Meagan Levitan [12], Jane Morrison [12], Melanie Nutter [12], Connie O’Connor [12], Arlo Smith [12], Laura Spanjian [13], Matt Tuchow [12], Scott Wiener [13], Dianne Feinstein, Mark Leno, August Longo, Nancy Pelosi, and Jackie Speier.

I’ll leave it to Latterman to do the analysis, but I just wanted to point out some correlations (endorsement source and district) and non-correlations (LGBT status).

When Susan Leal, Fiona Ma’s proxy, cast her vote for Peskin, the crowd (which was heavily Scott-leaning) went apeshit with hissing and such. It was awesome!

SCUTTLEBUTT: In addition to Ma’s-boyfriend-gate, people were twittering about David Chiu, who was appointed to the DCCC by Scott Wiiner after Sue Bierman’s death (and thus was an incumbent in June’s election). Chiu is running for Supervisor in my district. People were saying the Chiu sold Wiener out in exchange for Peskin’s support in the coming election.

The other rumor I heard was that David Campos, who has been Wiener’s friend since college, voted for Peskin  because he's been promised Peskin’s support in the District 9 supervisorial election. I don’t know if any of these things are true, but it sure as hell made the meeting more interesting!

Okay, back to the story.

Once Peskin was elected temporary chair, the thrill was gone. We all knew who was going to win. Worst of all, Scott Wiener knew. And had to sit there. Right next to Peskin for the next several hours. [Note to petty a-holes: this is why you should not prematurely hold elections under the guise of “temporary chair.”]

Public comment got started and the first person to speak announced some charitable event or something. I felt like I had been spammed. We are not here to listen to your homeroom announcements, people. We want lots of wonderfully bitchy public comment! And, while it could have been better, the 40 or so people who spoke did not disappoint. (Forgive me if I have mangled some names, I have the handwriting of a doctor on heroin.)

• Mark Murphy read a (now famous) quote from Chris Daly’s email to Arlo Smith aloud, “I, for one, have already committed to make it my personal mission to make sure that any members voting for Scott never receive the endorsement of the Guardian, Tenants Union, Sierra Club, and Milk Club in subsequent races." HUGE applause. Whistles. You name it.   

   

• Sarah Wright accused people of calling Wiener “a ‘moderate’ as if that’s an abomination?!”   

   

• Tom Brown held up the slate card that was the subject of a Progressive endorsement controversy and asked the DCCC to pass a resolution condemning the practice of fake endorsements.   

   

• Jim Illich said that the recent actions by the Progressives (like Daly's email) smacked of other “petty political bosses who did the same kind of tactics you’re pulling right now.” Again: crowd goes nuts! Bornstein tries tell the crowd to have decorum and is met with pitchforks and torches – people hissing, booing, yelling “It’s a meeting!” and “Democracy with a capital D and small d!!” Now, I don’t know what any of that meant, but they were pissed.   

   

• Andy Fleischman called upon Peskin to “show honor” and step down from the election because of Daly’s actions.   

   

• Bob Dockendorf got right to the heart of the matter when he began his speech by looking around at the members at the DCCC saying, “I’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars on you all since 1964…”

   

• A self-identified “businessman” was going on about the unfair “pressure primarily orchestrated by one person…” [“Leon Trotsky!” someone yelled. This may have been a reference to Daly. Just a hunch.]

   

• A self-identified “former young democrat” said “nastiness is not a San Francisco value, no matter how righteous you think you are.” Thunderous applause!   

   

• Hope Johnson spoke about Scott Wiener’s ties to “monied interests” and how the “moderates have maintained the status quo.”   

   

• Some lady from some cannabis organization, who was obviously high, rambled on about something while the rest of us snickered.

All in all, there were 23 speakers in favor of Wiener, 11 in favor of Peskin. Once public comment was over, sadly, the members of the DCCC started talking. Oh sweet tiny baby Jesus, it was painful. Beth was long gone by now, leaving just me and Tara to endure the obscenely long speeches about how we need to “heal the party” which were made more obnoxious by the fact that the vote hadn’t officially even happened yet.  “STFU, STFU, STFU” my notes read. And, “That chick from the cannabis club had the right idea.”

Susan Leal (Fiona’s proxy) stood to explain her vote. She began by talking about how she was hit by an actual bus and also a political bus.  She said that the person who stood beside her during the falling out with the Mistermayor was Peskin. (Actually, I heard it was Bevan Dufty, but whatever.) So that’s why she’s voting for Peskin.  Uh, hi. You're a proxy. We don't give a shit. What about Fiona?

Then Peskin piped up. He said, “I’m a supervisor so I can’t talk about the threats from the other side…” then went on to talk about threats from the other side for five minutes.  He spoke about healing and the future of the party and blah blah blah. I like Peskin and think anyone who can get the Board of Supervisors through over one-hundred agenda items in less than three hours will make a great chairman, but let me say this: the speech goes after the vote. It’s just good manners, y’all.

Scott sat stoically throughout the entire meeting like a man in a coma listening to his family make the funeral arrangements. They took the official vote (which was the same as before) and he was gracious until the end, thanking everyone who turned out to support him. He also thanked Susan Leal, saying, “I was proud to stand with you when you ran for Mayor.” Zing! Oh, he’s awake, alright…

And everyone was all, “Let’s heal and move on. We have to focus on getting Obama elected!” As if.

-Melissa

Comments

[Clemens]

so many LOLs. sooooooo maaaaaaaany LOLLLLLLLLs. thank you.

[Rachel]

OMG, Melissa. Thank you for sitting through all of the speeches so I didn't have to. I owe you one; geez, I probably even owe Spots one.

[sangfroid826]

"I’m here to see the bloody bitchfight between the liberals and the super-liberals ..."

That works as subtitle for most your blog posts.

[Jonathan]

Another great post. As someone else who managed to sit through all the speeches, you were right on. Seriously, though, thank you for posting the vote breakdown.

[mschool]

I'm left with the lingering feeling that if only someone from Team Wiener had gotten Walter Paulson http://www.vimeo.com/1305104 to speak on Scott's behalf, the vote count would have changed the second time around.

[jamie]

One more "slate" postcard to toss in the trash.

[Adam]

Perfect post. You have a new regular reader. You might find this funny: I heard someone describe Leal's speech as her "Where were you when I fell down the stairs" speech, which I think really captures the tone.

[Mousqueton]

@ melissa:

Loosing your edge Melissa?

You should have told "poster man" that there are no presidential candidates yet. We hope there will be candidates after the party conventions but as of today there are no official candidates. Ergo, he is nothing else than a poster boy for the flavor of the month.

[Greg]

@mousqueton: "loosing?" are you kidding me? you don't know the difference betweentt "losing" and "loosing" (which is not a word?"

More to the point - Obama, sorry to hurt your feelings, has WON the delegates needed to assure a nomination in August.

Melissa hasn't lost her edge, losers like you lost your right to complain with your bad command of the English language and the Party process.

Deal, doofus.

[Greg]

oh and melissa, thank you for your coverage of this high school bitchfest. I was far far away in San Diego at Nerd Prom, and couldn't have been happier to be away from Ayatollah Daly's "fatwas".

[Mousqueton]

@ Greg:

Sorry for the involuntary mistake. Excuse me if I offended you in any way; no ill was intended.

As for Obama, I must respectfully disagree with your comment. No Democratic candidate won the number of delegates needed to guarantee their nomination. If at all, all candidates proved that none of them had enough support (votes) to be elected as the outright presidential candidate of the Democratic Party.

It is therefore up to the “Super Delegates” to decide who would be the best candidate to represent the party in the next election. That is what “Super Delegates” are all about and in many similar occasions throughout our democratic history, when faced with a divided electorate, “Super Delegates” have chosen a third person as the party nominee. God forbid this is one of those cases but technically, it is a possibility.

It is true that most “Super Delegates” have endorsed the Obama nomination but they are not bound by that endorsement. We will have to wait for the “Super Delegates” to cast their vote at the Democratic Party Convention before we can say “for sure” that Obama is the Democratic Party nominee in the next presidential election. All the rest is wishful thinking.

As for my feelings, I have to say that I am not hurt in the least because, while I am not a partisan voter, I have voted for the Democratic candidates in every local, state and national election all my life.

My vote though is not a “gimmee”; I expect my candidates to make the “put” and earn my vote by answering the tough questions and by giving clear indications as to what they intend to do.