Daly Says He Wants to Stay Positive In Race for Democratic Regional Director -- But His Friends Don't Listen

Supervisor Chris Daly

On Friday we wrote about the intriguing race for the obscure, unpaid position of Democratic Regional Director between Supervisor Chris Daly -- whose brash behavior has often overshadowed his politics -- and three-term incumbent August Longo -- a multiple convicted felon.

Despite several convictions for larceny and fraud, Longo has worked his way into the local Democratic party's inner circles and is a tight ally of both John Burton and Willie Brown. He told SF Weekly that his criminal past is water under the bridge and accused Daly of trying to peddle the story to "every paper in town." Daly denied this, and reiterated -- repeatedly -- that he wants to run a clean race.

Yet while Daly may want to keep things positive and talk -- a lot -- about being energized by Barack Obama and reaching out to young people and whatnot, some of his friends and allies are happy to delve into Longo's troubling past. On Tuesday, an e-mail doing just that was fired off to Democratic delegates -- who will vote for Longo or Daly on Saturday in Sacramento -- by Jonathan Wright, president of the newly formed San Francisco Democratic Club.

Wright is a friend and supporter of Daly's who worked on the supervisor's hard-fought re-election campaign in 2006 and also worked for former Daly aide John Avalos' successful Supervisorial campaign. And Wright urged delegates to "avoid voting for a convicted felon  who spent 18 years evading justice for identity theft, bad check writing and worse." You can read Wright's entire letter here:

Wright letter.doc  

Wright told SF Weekly that he wrote his letter on his own volition and actually concealed his intentions from Daly. Daly also denied any knowledge of Wright's intentions -- but refused to answer our question of whether he was upset with his friend for going negative, and was hesitant to rebuke Wright as "he's a good friend and supporter and I don't want to alienate him." Daly did add, "I would call on my supporters to go positive."

We'll see if they do -- from now on.