San Francisco Blog

To qualify for San Francisco’s public financing law, candidates have to raise $25,000 from San Francisco residents by today at 5 p.m. to qualify for the initial 2 to 1 match. (The city offers a 4 to 1 match for the next $100K raised). No single check can count for more than $100. At present, according to the city’s Ethics Commission, which handles public financing, no other Mayoral candidate has submitted a qualified application.

The only other candidate who definitely could – incumbent Mayor Gavin Newsom - is not going to apply. A spokesperson for the Newsom campaign did not return calls for comment. The widely accepted reason for his non-participation is the spending cap: Newsom’s already raised about $1.5 million. If he accepts public financing, he can only spend about $1.3 million. He’d rather take the money and run.

You can pretty much buy the Guardian with that kind of scratch … if that’s what you’re into.

Chicken John made it by the skin of his teeth. Ironically, it was Burning Man that nearly did him in. Many members of Chicken John’s network who were enthusiastic supporters and would have loved to contribute were tapped out because they were going to Burning man – the festival Chicken John help found – and that takes a lot of money spent on hair extensions and dried fruit.

Others who could have been called on in a pinch couldn’t be called at all – because they were at Burning Man. Chicken John himself had driven down to the desert on Friday and then flown back for a last-ditch Monday night fundraiser at San Francisco’s greenest house.
By the end of that fundraiser, he was still almost $3,000 short.

Tuesday morning, he began a last, desperate pitch.

“I sent out a message to my list,” he said. “I said I’m this close. I said, if you’re a resident of San Francisco who hasn’t given to my campaign yet, here’s my phone number, call me, I will come to your house and clean your toilet. And a bunch of people called me. I was ready: I had a toilet bush in my hand which I bought at Walgreens with my mayor’s money. Is that legal? Is anybody going to contest that charge? Nobody made me clean their toilet, but a bunch of people gave me checks.”

More checks came in with the afternoon mail, and a sizeable contingent of his supporters at Burning Man logged on and sent contributions through Pay-Pal.

As a result, he expects to have cleared the financial hurdle by at least $300 … and possibly more. That cuts a close margin of error, however: if enough of his contributors are successfully challenged, he could find himself knocked out of the matching funds program, facing a popular incumbent who has a … oh, geez, how to calculate this … um … 60,000-to-1 fundraising advantage.

Chicken John, however, says that with the public money in hand he’ll have a clear shot at getting his message out. Most of that money, he said Monday night, will be used for more conventional political communications – like ad buys and yard signs – closer to the end of the campaign. First, however, he’ll try more “creative” ways to get his message out.
“I’m going to need to have a lot of conversations with (the city’s) ethics commission,” he said. “Can I make a gassifier (a device that lets a car run on coffee grinds) and gift it to the city, then demand they use it on a MUNI bus? Is that legal? I don’t know. I’m probably going to need to check.”

There will also, he said, be murals painted, and more “innovative” fundraising events.

“I’m in a good position to have a number of positive things come out of this campaign,” he said. “It’s just that none of them involve me sitting at the desk in room 200.”
He does have one advantage – something Gavin Newsom could only dream about. At the end of this week, a small army of well inclined volunteers will be coming back from Burning Man, still looking for a good time.

Most of them have paint brushes.

After all, you can’t stop rock and roll.