We know we’re not the only ones who followed the 2011 elections with a sense of wonder, amusement, frustration, and, yes, astonishment. How was it, that after 16 candidates, 24 months of campaigning, millions of dollars, tons of political mail, and mudslinging all around, that things ended up pretty much how they were?
After it all, we have the same mayor, the same D.A. and the sheriff that was endorsed by outgoing sheriff Mike Hennesey?
For the 60% of you who didn’t vote, the winners of the election were Mayor Ed Lee, District Attorney George Gascón, and Sheriff-elect and D5 supervisor Ross Mirkarimi.
For the 40% who did, and the 50 or so deeply interested citizens of Noe Valley, Dr. Corey Cook dropped by our November meeting to explain it all. Dr. Cook has a PhD in Political Science, and is Assistant Professor of Politics at USF and Director of the Leo McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good. He is also a resident of Piedmont, so he didn’t really have a horse in this race.
Cook provides a few really interesting points:
If Ed Lee weren’t in the race, Supervisor David Chiu would have been the winner. Interesting, given that Chiu didn’t place in the top three.
In the D.A.’s race, if Sharmin Bock had come in second and David Onek third (they were only split by a couple of thousand votes with Onek in second), then Gascón may have lost. Instead, he won big.
In the Sheriff’s race, Cook expressed surprise that Chris Cunnie and Captain Paul Miyamoto didn’t share more votes in the first- and second-place slots. Instead, their second place votes went to Mirkarimi, giving him the necessary 50% majority in early rounds of ranked-choice counting.
Cook saw the strong showing of John Avalos as a sign that San Francisco’s progressives are still a political force. In fact, Avalos had more votes on the day of the election than any other candidate.
Commenting on the presidential race, Cook said that President Obama would be in bigger trouble if it weren’t for the weak Republican field. He feels as though the race to the right in the primaries will result in low general election enthusiasm for the eventual nominee (Mitt Romney).
It was a banner night for all of us political science geeks in the crowd.
We also heard from One Minute for Peace, a group dedicated to reducing spending on military. Check out their site for a cogent argument in favor of drastic cuts in military spending.
