Most of political San Francisco is outraged at the shockingly anti-Semitic comments of District Four supe candidate Leanna Louie. She attacked MissionLocal columnist Joe Eskenazi, who has done a great job reporting on the fact that she might not have lived in the district long enough to run for supe—or might have voted illegally in another district.
Numerous local political leaders and news media outlets have called on her to drop out of the race.
But Joel Engardio, who is the candidate most likely to benefit from Louie taking Chinese votes away from incumbent Gordon Mar, has stopped a long way short of that.
Engardio denounced her comments in a message on Twitter:
When I contacted him, he said he is running “his own campaign.”
But even when I pressed him, he refused to call on Louie to withdraw from the race, and he refused to say that he would encourage his supporters not to vote for her.
Mayor London Breed has also failed to call on Louie to withdraw.
Here’s the cold political calculus:
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Engardio, a Breed ally, would have a very hard time beating Gordon Mar in a one-on-one race in a district with a large Chinese population. As long as Louie is in the race, and takes votes away from Mar, Engardio has a chance.
As a pure political decision, running a (subtle, unannounced) ranked-choice campaign with Louie helps Engardio. Both challengers can attack the incumbent, even from different political perspectives. Both can share second-place votes.
And while Louie is unlikely to win, if she stays in the race her second-place votes could elect Engardio.
If she is forced out by the City Attorney’s Office, or drops out because of her anti-Semitic rantings, Mar is the main beneficiary.
I ought to be a bit stunned that Engardio is unwilling to call on Louie to drop out, or to tell his supporters that they should never vote for someone with her record.
But this is San Francisco politics, and while Engardio talks about how awful and toxic and divisive it is, he’s not risking his own future to take a principled stand.
“In San Francisco, I always thought that we don’t give an inch to this kind of intolerance and sever ties whenever we see it,” Sup. Aaron Peskin told me. “The fact that somebody so badly wants to be a member of the Board of Supervisors that he can’t be a leader is very disturbing.”
The mayor is out of town. Presumably she has email. She could also make a statement. Or not.
