I live in San Francisco, just a few blocks from Castro and Market, and have been registered to vote by mail for several years now. There's not a lot of excitement at the Federal of statewide level. For races that I have a vote in, our team is pretty sure to prevail. The propositions are a little more confusing, but I'm pretty clear where I stand on those.
But in one race I'm torn by indecision.
For Assembly district 17, we of course have two Democrats contending for the seat, both named David. David Campos sits on the Board of Supervisors [city council] and David Chiu is the President of the Board of Supervisors.
There's a lot to like in both candidates, I think.
As the gay candidate, David Campos starts with the edge for me. And he has some respectable endorsements, including the outgoing incumbent of the seat, the Sierra Club and the newly defunct Bay Guardian.
David Chiu is clearly the party establishment choice. He even has an endorsement from Dianne Feinstein, which I count somewhat against him. But at the same time he feels more like a 'rising star' in the party and I don't consider that a trivial skill.
He knows how to create a public profile. I was walking to work one weekday morning and there he was standing outside the Metro Station and I recognized him from more than ten paces away. After I shook hands with him, I thought it would be silly to vote for a candidate just because you shook his hand, but it's certainly not a reason to vote against him.
At the same time I realized I didn't know what David Campos even looked like. Now it's probably true that Chiu is better funded, and with that much inner-party power behind him, I suppose he's the favorite.
On the policy level, they both make claims to have done specific things for housing and jobs. They're certainly not nearly identical claims, but they're a bit hard to sift.
I know there are a lot of Kossacks in the area, so I thought I'd throw it out there and see if anyone has something useful to offer in consideration.