From the smoke-filled back rooms of Northern California Power Politics, where Bay Area Bloggers and Readers (BARBARians) decide the fate of candidates and ballot initiatives, I bring you these suggestions:

Proposition 98

98 is evil and must be destroyed.

I think that just about sums it up.

Proposition 99

99 doesn't really do any material harm to the actual function of eminent domain, and it does address the classic "turning retired nuns out into the street to build a shopping mall" problem that the property rights fundies *say* they're addressing, so a yes vote could turn this issue off for a few years.

Getting property rights fundies to STFU? That could be worth a yes vote.

State Senate Races

We have one endorsement of Mark Leno for State Senate. It's a 3-way race so it could get very interesting.

Overall level of interest for the other contests can be described as lukewarm.

San Francisco County Measures

Here are the thoughts of one BARBARian luminary. My thoughts afterwards.

A: Yes on a parcel tax. Regressive but small enough not to cause too much pain.

B: Yes to rationalizing city employee retirement health care. There aren't really any arguments against this, although I have some sympathy to the Republicans' argument that this stuff doesn't belong in the charter. The proposition isn't the place to make that argument, though.

C: Yes to stripping retirement bennies based on a conviction of a crime involving "moral turpitude". I know people don't like the phrase, because in the past it's been misused. All sorts of neutral laws have been misused -- I can't hold that against this law.

D: Yes to at least tracking the diversity of City Boards and Commissions.

E: Yes to Supe's approval of appointments to PUC and creating standards for qualification. Sometimes, you can judge a man by his enemies. That's the case here. PG&E HATES this proposition. I think it's generally a good idea on the merits, but the fact that PG&E hates it tends to seal the deal for me.

F&G: No on both of these. F is probably too restrictive. G is very close to a blank check to Lennar Corporation, which is the only corporation currently permitted to redevelop the Shipyard (not a fact mentioned anywhere in the ballot information booklet).

H: No. Fuzzy beyond belief. Public funding is good, but this strings a set of invisible tripwires across the politics of the City, and I for one, am not anxious to hear the attacks and counterattacks alleging corruption based on technical violations.

My 2 cents on F and G:

I will vote yes on F, mainly to piss off Gavin Newsom, but also because it attempts to strike a better deal for people like me who may someday be able to think, non-delusionally, about buying some "affordable" housing in San Francisco.

The G supporters have borrowed ready-made Conservative Movement frames for this debate: if we don't give the Corporation everything they want, including things that are bad for citizens, the Corporation will withhold it's Capital love and woe will be us. So that's a big No on G from me.

Along with Prop 98 I think it's a debate over what "community" means and how to "improve" it. Does it mean displacing lower-income people to bring in more investment? It might improve the local economy and property values, but what happened to the Community we were trying to improve? Those people are gone now, forced to move somewhere else.

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Other, less authoritative voter guides:

Beyond Chron

SF Bay Guardian

San Francisco Green Party

Don't forget to click here and follow the links to individual BARBARians for NorCal style bloggy goodness.

Any Correntians live in our great state of Gullyvuornia (as pronounced by our Governator)? How will you vote tomorrow?

And you WILL be voting. The Blog compels you.