[Ed. Note: After years of the 'Deep Slate being email only, I've moved it to my blog as well as email.]

1. You can find your polling place in SF HERE or for the rest of CA HERE.
2. You can print just the LIST (all the better to take to the polls) from HERE.

Thanks again to the number of folks who have asked me for my opinions. I know I say it every time but it is quite true: I really am honored by your interest.

Sorry this has taken so long, but as usual, I’m doing the best I can under the relentless pressure of October (Work deadlines! Halloween costume! election stuff!).

If you like it, please do let me know! Also questions, criticisms, comments welcome!

GO VOTE!
‘deep
—–

The format of this post is simple:

1. The LIST: The simple list of my endorsements for this election
2. The DETAILS: The whys and wherefores of each endorsement.
3. My VALUES: A brief explanation of my values and sources, to help make sense of my opinions.

THE LIST:

The key is as follows:

• The more UPPERCASE – the more strongly I feel.
• An ‘*’ by the Yes/No means I don’t know a lot about it & went with the SF Bay Guardian or California League of Conservation Voters (CLCV) or some set of organizations I value, like the Sierra Club.

US:
President: Barack Obama
US Senate: Dianne Feinstein
Congress: Nancy Pelosi

CA:
Assembly D13: Tom Ammiano
Assembly D19: Phil Ting
State Senate D11: MARK LENO
BART Board D9: TOM RADULOVICH

Prop. 30: Temporary Sales Tax & Progressive Income Tax for Schools: YES YES YES
Prop. 31: Budget and Legislative “Reforms”: No
Prop. 32: Unfair Limits to Political Spending: NO NO NO
Prop. 33: Changing Insurance Rates to Benefit Insurance Companies: No*
Prop. 34: Replace the Death Penalty with Life w/o Parole: YES YES YES
Prop. 35: Deeply Flawed Human Trafficking Legislation: NO
Prop. 36: Improve Three Strikes Law: YES YES YES
Prop. 37: Require Labeling for GMO Foods: YES
Prop. 38: Raise Income Taxes for Education: Yes
Prop. 39: Tax Treatment for Multistate Businesses: Yes*
Prop. 40: Support Redistricting Decisions: Yes*

SF:
Board of Supervisors
D1: Eric Mar
D3: David Chiu
D5: 1. John Rizzo 2. Christina Olague
D7: Norman Yee
D9: David Campos
D11: John Avalos

Community College Board
Chris Jackson
Rafael Mandelman
Steven Ngo
Amy Bacharach

Board of Education
Sandra Fewer
Jill Wynns
Rachel Norton
Matt Haney

Prop. A: City College Parcel Tax: YES
Prop. B: Parks Bond: Yes
Prop. C: Affordable Housing Trust Fund: YES YES YES
Prop. D: Consolidate Off-Year Elections: Yes
Prop. E: Gross Receipts Tax: Yes
Prop. F: Hetch Hetchy and Water Study: YES
Prop. G: Corporations Are Not People: YES

Read on for the details of why I’m recommending the above…

Click HERE for more…

Note: This is a horribly delayed post, but I was waiting for photos that did it justice (I need a camera crew for FlashDance and Trikeasaurus dammit!). Luckily, Brian, Mike, Whole Wheat & Bill came through. Anyway this is the one of 2 posts about LAST Saturday (11/15), not the most recent Saturday. The other post is from the FlashDance that night.

Also note that there are more pics and videos after the jump!

(Courtesy of Whole Wheat on Flickr)

Celeste and I were on our way to the Prop 8 protest last Saturday (11/15) & halfway there I started wondering whether we should go home and get Trikeasaurus. It was a bit of a debate because obviously you don’t want to detract from the cause or trivialize it.

It’s a tough call because the gestalt here in our fair city is strange: ecstatic, hopeful, and in giddy disbelief about Obama, but devastated, angry, and really heart-broken about Prop 8′s victory. (It doesn’t matter whether you are straight or gay – everyone I know is heartbroken about Prop 8.)

So what to do?

In the end, the gorgeousness and warmth of the day carried it. We figured “The Gays” + “sunny, gorgeous day” meant that in addition to being a protest, it was going to be a party.

So we turned around, went home, put together Trikeasaurus & headed out again.

It turns out we were right! PEOPLE LOVED IT and my wee trike became a bit of a rallying point.

Did I mention how much I love “The Gays”

Click HERE for more…

Note: This is a horribly delayed post, but I was waiting for photos that did it justice (I need a camera crew for FlashDance and Trikeasaurus dammit!). Luckily, May-Li & Liza came through. Anyway this is the one of 2 posts about LAST Saturday (11/15), not the most recent Saturday. The other post is about Trikeasaurus rocking the Anti-Prop-8 Protest that day.

Also note that there is a video & the playlist after the jump!

(courtesy of May-Li Khoe)

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! Flashdance 18 was just amazing. Maybe 100-150 people dancing at any given time and maybe 200 people over the course of the night. But as usual, the real story was just the vibe. A warm night and fun music were part of it, but really, as usual the key to such a great FlashDance is all the awesome people who came out to 24th & Mission and made it so fabulous! I love my peeps! Thanks for making 3 years of FlashDances so amazing!

Click HERE for more…

because it summarizes how I feel so well:

I’ve barely been able to think about Prop 8 going down. It is just too depressing and gets in the way of the happiness I so desperately need after all these years. I realize though, that not thinking about it is a luxury I have but is so much harder for anyone who happens to be gay. So I thought I should put this up to remind me. None of us get to “not think about” this.

I’m sooo sorry. For all of us.

‘deep

UPDATE (11/13/08): Here are 2 GREAT articles from the NYT that discuss some of the points I make in this post, with much better detail and info. The first is about transforming “I don’t trust blacks” voters in PA, and the second is about “I don’t want blacks over me” voters in the South.
NOTE: I wrote most of this yesterday on the flight back from Ohio, but decided to spend some time thinking about it and editing. I also wrote these three posts (1,2,3) about my time volunteering in Ohio.

I’ve always been fascinated with race & civil rights. I’ve read a lot, studied a lot, been affected by it a lot, and just plain thought about it a lot. So, it came as a bit of a shock to me that I only remembered Obama was black yesterday as the vote totals were coming in. I’d kinda forgotten it until then

I had been worried that we might win close even though we had 10 times the ground-game McCain had. I would be happy of course, but deeply unsettled about what that would say about us as a nation. This has been a vast national push the likes of which I have never heard of. What would it mean if all that effort only squeezed out a victory as close as our last two losses? That would be a deeply shattering statement about our country. But as I drove back down to Columbus last night, listening to the early vote totals coming in & hearing all the states that were going McCain, I realized that it would only be troubling only if our candidate was white. And I had forgotten that he was black.

We are in many ways a country not ready for a black President, but we have exceeded our worst truths to attempt our best truths.

Click HERE for more…

NOTE: I wrote most of this yesterday on the flight back from Ohio, but decided to spend some time thinking about it and editing. I also wrote this post on race & these two (1,2) posts from Ohio.

(Geauga County, where I went, is the red one, next to Cleveland)
(from NY Times map)

WOW WOW WOW.

This is the first day in a long, long time I’ve felt real hope. The end of the of 2006 elections was a relief & it meant that the long nightmare was at least ending. But it wasn’t a time to start a new national dream. Today is that day. The last eight years have shattered almost everything that I loved about our country. We have laid bare all the ugliness we are capable of as a people*. We have done and said things I believed were impossible for us until we did and became those things. It was 8 years of looking in the mirror and finding evil and ugliness. It has been a hard, hard time (tears come to my eyes even thinking about it). What a beautiful way to turn the page. The difference between just yesterday and today is best summarized by Barack himself, as he said last night:

Click HERE for more…

NOTE: This is my second quick-’n'-dirty post from Ohio. Again, I’m sorry for grammar, punctuation & readability. Sorry – just too busy.

(click Barack to see more pix from my trip)

Many things have CHANGEd since my last post. CHANGE! I’ll drop some quick notes before I go to bed – tomorrow I have to get up crazy early and help squeeze the relatively small # of Obama votes from this area to offset part of the red wave from this part of OH:

• I’m now in the red red red Republican hinterlands in the northwest – near Cleveland & Lake Erie. McPalin signs outnumber us at least 2 to 1.
• My new Obama belly has grown considerably (soooo much campaign junk food everywhere & the aforementioned “would you like iceberg lettuce with that bacon?”-salads. What’s hi in the middle & round at both ends…. (sigh) …me
• I saw Barack at a rally Sunday – he rocks. Clearly a little tired, but the confidence, charm, and stature is impressive. 60,000 people showed up for his rally at the state capitol.
• I rented a car and drove up here from Columbus. On the way here (late Sunday night) I dropped off various things at various other campaign offices on the way. The energy and excitement at each, LATE on a Sunday night was amazing. Given, it was 2 nights before election day, but check these (1) articles (2) at 538 for comparison. Anyway here is the picture I took at a small office in Cleveland – it doesn’t quite do justice to the noise, energy & buzz, but perhaps it does do justice to the the diversity and youth. It really is cool to see. As The Who albums says, “The Kids Are Alright”. I am amazed not just at the youth and energy, but also the intelligence, focus, & drive. It gives me more HOPE.
• When I decided to come out, I was a little leary of staying at host housing & considered getting a hotel room for myself. I’m always a little leary of staying with hosts – mostly because I am always worried about inconveniencing benefactors, so I’m never relaxed. But after staying with 2 different Ohio families, I have to say, I’m glad I didn’t stay in a hotel. It is really really nice to connect with people who you don’t know anything about, and stay in their homes, and to enjoy their generosity (Thanks, Jeanne & Hal, Elizabeth & Jim!)
• The technology angle of all this is once again noteworthy. Using my iPhone 3G’s GPS to get me anywhere and everywhere in these completely unfamiliar surroundings has been AWESOME. I navigated to Cleveland, & all around to various campaign locations, & all around this pretty rural area with ease! Thank god I found that Wal-Mart open late Sunday night with an iPhone car-charger though….

.PS – GO VOTE TODAY & EMAIL ME IF YOU WANT MY VOTING GUIDE A.K.A THE ‘DEEP SLATE!! (Yes on H! No on 8!)

.pps I miss you guys & can’t wait to get home.

.ppps: TO ALL OF YOU WORKING ON CAMPAIGNS BOTH AT HOME & IN SWING STATES – YOU ROCK! THANK YOU!

NOTE: This is effectively a draft of the post I want to put up. And even the post itself will be pretty rudimentary. I just don’t have much time. I’ll put this up now & fix it soon HOPEFULLY. ALSO: I wrote most of this last night, but I haven’t proofread this at all… I gotta get back to work….

Reporting…. from….. Ohio…. sooooo….. tired…… must. focus. type.

Ok kids -

So I’ve been meaning to blog from freezing Ohio, but I’m just working too hard and am too fried to think of anything coherent to say. This is one of those “you’ll think about it when it’s over” times in my life. Mostly I’m just working my ass off, trying to use my powers for awesome.

So given the lack of coherent narrative structure, I’m just going to drop you some notes: I really do want to capture some of this moment & I know that some of you have been wondering what I’m doing & how it’s going…:
Click HERE for more…

SAN FRANCISCO, October 14 – Declaring that it was time to “set San Francisco aside,” Senator Amandeep Jawa said Monday that he would temporarily stop living in San Francisco to travel to Ohio to help forge an electoral-vote victory for Barack Obama.

“America faces an historic crisis in our political system,” Jawa said in mid-afternoon remarks to reporters in Cupertino. “If we do not act, every corner of our country will be impacted. We cannot allow this to happen.”

“We must campaign as Americans, not as San Franciscans or Buckeyes, and campaign until this crisis is resolved,” Jawa said, urging other Californians to join him in volunteering in other states.

“This is a time to rise above locality for the good of the country.” Jawa added.

——–

Seriously, unlike John, I’m actually suspending something to go work on something. I’m headed to Ohio for the last 3 weeks of the campaign to volunteer for the Obama campaign in Columbus.

The polls are looking good for the moment, so maybe this will be unnecessary. But I was optimistic in 2004 too & that was the greatest suckage of my political life. So I’m going. Wish me (& the country) luck.

.ps
Whilst I’m away, please pass Prop H here in SF & pass Prop 1-A at the state level, but most of all defeat the heinous Prop 8 at the state level. I luvs me some gays and some civil rights! (If you want my political recommendations and voting slate, drop me an email. I’ll be sending it out soon.)

.pps
Please Please Please Please consider donating to Yes on H, or No on 8, I did. They both could use the money and are righteous.

.ppps
If you’re interested, I know a lot of folks are volunteering in Nevada on weekends for Obama. I highly recommend it! Others are making phone calls to other states. Please help out! Two words: President Palin.