Boudin recall ad features paid staffers and a scandal-plagued former DA

There’s a new ad going on the airwaves this week pushing to recall Chesa Boudin—and it features two paid staffers and a former Solano County district attorney who lost his job after an alleged misconduct scandal.

Great start.

The folks at SFist did a great job with this:

You’d think the ad would feature grieving victim families affected by paroled criminals, say, like the family of the New Year’s Eve hit-and-run victims, or last February’s fatal eight-car crash near Lake Merced. Does it feature victims’ families? Let’s go to the tape.

A woman identified as “Andrea Shorter, Safer SF Without Boudin” appears in the ad, and says, “I didn’t support the Newsom recall, but this is different.”

This is the same Andrea Shorter whom the campaign is paying $8,000, twice every month according to campaign filings, for a staggering $16,000 monthly salary. Nice work if you can get it! Shorter is generally identified as “spokesperson” for the recall campaign.

One of the other speakers is Mary Jung, a real-estate lobbyist who is also the recall campaign treasurer.

So: People who are getting paid to advocate for the recall are also the spokespeople in an ad for the recall. Hardly a sign of great grassroots support.

The ad also features Don Du Bain, who is described as a former Solano DA. What it doesn’t say is that he was voted out of office after what the Examiner described as

[a] scandal, in which du Bain’s office allegedly failed to properly disclose evidence during a trial, raises questions about his ethics.

Despite all of that, he was hired by Boudin’s predecessor, George Gascon, but is no longer in the DA’s office. He quit shortly after Boudin was elected (no, he was not fired) and is now working on the recall campaign.

There is one person in the ad who talks about a serious crime and its impact on his family. But as SFist notes:

We do hear from one victim family member, Jason Young, father of a six-year-old who was shot on July 4, 2020. “I never in a million years thought that my son, let alone any six-year-old, would be gunned down in the streets of San Francisco, and not get any justice,” Young says in the ad.

But this is a little misleading. That case did go cold for a few months, but since then, an arrest was made in January, and the suspect has been charged with murder and attempted murder, among other felonies. A second suspect was arrested in August, but neither suspect has had their trial yet.

In this case, Boudin is charging the suspects with murder, and taking the case to trial. Just as the people in the ad suggest he should.

So let’s go over this:

The critics of Boudin in this ad are either:

Paid campaign staffers;

Or a former DA forced out of office in a scandal;

Or a person who is saying there is “no justice” when that’s not true.

The Chron and the TV stations love to attack Boudin with at best misleading and sometimes utterly inaccurate reports.

Perhaps some of them could pick up on everything that is at best misleading and sometimes utterly inaccurate in this campaign ad.