Sunday, August 19, 2007

The First San Francisco Mayoral Debate



A small group of local political junkies gathered in Civic Center Plaza on Friday at 5PM...



...to watch a ninety minute debate between 11 of the 13 challengers to Mayor Newsom for this fall's election.



The event was successful on a number of levels, especially in attracting quite a bit of media which even included a fairly written article by John Wildermuth in The Chronicle (click here).



The moderator was writer Savannah Blackwell (above)...



...but the questions were all asked by the candidates themselves, such as Dr. Ahimsa Porter Sumchai (above)...



...to their fellow candidates such as Quentin Mecke (above).



Ousted Supervisor and Treasure Island Director Tony Hall was unexpectedly articulate, and for a few good quotes of his about Newsom and the Lennar Corporation, check out Sarah Phelan's account on the Bay Guardian Politics Blog (click here).



H. Brown and Josh Wolf organized the event so that the "minority" candidates could get some media exposure and also share ideas with each other, and both objectives were successful (click here for Mr. Brown's funny take on Fog City Journal, including his essay about "Gavin is a decent guy, but...").



Also on Fog City Journal is an instant classic of a photo of nudist activist George Davis (above) posing in front of Room 200 later in the evening (click here).



The group plans to continue this event every Friday for the next three months, so come on down to the plaza next Friday between 5:00 and 6:30 PM.



It was a surprisingly entertaining time.

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