[amitkgupta84]

Good question. I didn't mean this to refer to a specific politician, I meant that SF isn't the kind of place where such a politician could thrive. I think in a healthy place, you would see a healthy balance of right and left politicians who genuinely have to contend with one another. I would expect conservative politicians to win elections when things like crime and quality of life start to go the wrong direction. I don't think the delusional climate in SF is conducive to this healthy balance.

My recollection of the election when Breed won was there was one Republican, and I don't think he got many votes. Ideally there would be multiple Republican and Democratic candidates, with strong and worthwhile candidates from each party, each getting a decent share of votes. I recall the two other popular Democratic candidates competing with Breed banded together (don't remember what that meant exactly, I think they were recommending voters to vote for both of them in their ranked choices) and their platform for dealing with homelessness was to give them all cleaning supplies and have them clean the streets of SF, thereby killing two birds with one stone (giving the homeless productive, gainful occupation and dealing with all the litter, needles, human waste, etc. on the streets). I can't think of a more out-of-touch idea than that, but this was the #2 choice for San Franciscans.

I think anyone sensible would have simply asked for what Breed is now proposing to do. Voicing that opinion in SF years ago would've made you a pariah. It's a common sense opinion if you're living in and observing reality, but that's simply not what SF culture has been about.

[zepto]

I agree. This is the problem with California having become effectively a one-party state.

[dragonwriter]

> My recollection of the election when Breed won was there was one Republican, and I don’t think he got many votes.

There were two Republicans, and the one that got more votes (both first preference and total, since it was an IRV not first-past-the-post election) of the two wasn’t a “he”. (The one that got fewer votes was the one endorsed by most local Republican institutions.)

But if you are thinking of her 2019 reelection in the regular election and not the 2018 special election…

The other candidates were (in order of most to least final votes)

Ellen Lee Zhou (R) – the leading Republican from the special election

Joel Ventresca (endorsed by Green Party, subsequently ran in the gubernatorial recall as a Democrat)

Paul Ybarra Robertson (no apparent party affiliation)

Wilma Pang (previously Peace and Freedom, but not sure if that was current in 2019)

Robert L. Jordan (a "street minister" with no apparent party affiliation)

> Ideally there would be multiple Republican and Democratic candidates

There were in the open seat election where Breed was first elected; there was one of each in the regular election where she was reelected.

But San Francisco has 316k registered Democrats, 137K registered with no party preference, 33K registered Republicans, and 15K registered with other parties. Expecting symmetry between the nationally major parties in San Francisco is silly. Many individual factions within the Democratic Party are larger, in terms of electorate, than the Republican Party in SF, and the ratio in support between the Democratic and Republican parties is smaller than that between the Republican and American Independent parties and almost the same as that between the Republican and Libertarian parties.

> I recall the two other popular Democratic candidates competing with Breed banded together (don’t remember what that meant exactly, I think they were recommending voters to vote for both of them in their ranked choices) and their platform for dealing with homelessness was to give them all cleaning supplies and have them clean the streets of SF, thereby killing two birds with one stone

That…didn’t happen. None of the major Democrats either banded together or had a platform like that. (There were some institutional cross-endorsements for Breed and Leno.)

[amitkgupta84]

I was thinking of 2018, but I don't remember Ellen Lee Zhou being Republican, only Richie Greenberg. Four unaffiliated-but-Democratic candidates ranked higher, Ellen and Richie were next both with less than 5% of the vote. Mark Leno and Jane Kim were the two I recall banding together; they were #2 and #3 respectively after London.

> But San Francisco has 316k registered Democrats, 137K registered with no party preference, 33K registered Republicans, and 15K registered with other parties. Expecting symmetry between the nationally major parties in San Francisco is silly.

SF is extremely unbalanced. See: https://www.bestplaces.net/voting/city/california/san_franci.... Why is it silly to expect it to be less extreme?