The CB Issue 10
Image credit: PEW Research
“Are you going to run for office again?”
I hear that question a lot from friends, family, and people in politics. The answer is yes. But not yet.
“Things are broken, you should run in 2022.”
In February, I began speaking with leaders and political consultants about running for office again in 2022. And I seriously considered it.
This last year exposed the cold hard truth: Local government is broken. Education, transportation, infrastructure, government services. The house of cards has fallen.
In San Francisco, the call for a change is growing louder by the day.
It's clear we need new leadership. It’s clear we need people with a vision for San Francisco, and how all of us can live here with the values we believe in.
But one of the biggest obstacles to running for office in San Francisco are the entrenched political machines that are so incredibly powerful. I've experienced this first hand.
After speaking with family, friends, and colleagues, I recognize that we need a movement to get us there. Not the same old pattern of reaching out to the political machine bosses to get their blessing to run.
The need for a movement can’t be more clear: The City of San Francisco suing the school district might make the national news. But it's really just the tipping point: Government is falling apart at the seams.
So in 2021 I'm going back to my roots. I've been called a builder. So I am going to start by building a new community focused on transforming government in SF. We need builders today that can change a system that isn’t working.
Starting this March I'm going to publish The CB as a quarterly update with a deeper focus on San Francisco. But the ideas behind these proposals is more than San Francisco.
And in the Spring I'm going to launch a new project to provide a vision, a plan, and the steps needed to get there. Think of it as a roadshow focused on the work I love: Building a better government that is open, transparent, accessible, equitable, innovative, and effective.
Over the next year, I’m excited to share my vision and the actions we can take together. It’s time to update our expectations of what San Francisco can and should be. It’s time for a roadmap to get us there.
Forward together.
/CB
1/ One-Action to take
It's quiet in the political landscape right now. Which is a breath of fresh air given the last four years of constant media assault on our senses.
But people still ask me what they can do, and this time, I'm going to say join me. I need your help.
For the roadshow, we have the content and a plan. But we need help if we’re going to bring the communities we need to bridge together.
Promotion support…we need help sharing the word. This might be by committing to share content or helping us create content for others to share on their social media channels.
Community building…we want to add infrastructure accessible to as many people as possible. Newsletter, podcasts, Slack, you name it: We need to build tools to where people are and to bring them together.
Research support…we have tons of content that would benefit greatly from additional research support in legal, policy, tech, & data. Or if you want to organize the research, that would help too.
Content creation…we want to share content on different platforms. You have the skills to translate content to other social media. Or maybe you just have a passion of a particular social media platform and now how to translate the content to that platform.
If you're interested, send me an email and I can share more about the series we are putting together.
2/ What to watch
All eyes might be on the Civil War in the Republican Party. But the Democratic Party is having a fierce battle between Moderates and Progressives in San Francisco. Don't be shocked if this political conflict expands to national levels very quickly.
Regardless of one's political persuasion, there is an official (albeit small effort) to recall the DA (Chesa Boudin) and several members of the SF Board of Education.
Some of this is discontent with leadership (see, e.g. Gov. Newsom). But the recall efforts in SF have a bigger impact on the Progressive Political Machine run by David Campos. There are massive political overtones, undertones, sidetones, and more, both locally and nationally. For those that don't remember, DA Boudin was supported by a national Progressive network. So more than just SF politicos will be keeping an eye on any effort, let alone success of a recall effort.
3/ Did you know?
Senator Raphael Warnock only has a two year term. His election was a special election, so we might have a Warnock Loeffler Round Two. Regardless of the next opponent, prepare for the next round to begin in earnest later this year. The Senate is split 50/50 so the importance of every seat right now is at Epic levels.
And when that call comes next election season, I’ll support him again.
Send Charles a question
Questions, suggestions, comments? Send me an email or find me on Twitter @CharlesBelle
ABOUT The CB
After running for Supervisor in San Francisco, people keep asking me — What can I do? I created The CB because I know people care about our communities, our cities, our country, and our future. We need real change. And you don’t want to sit on the sidelines, you want to be part of the change for a better world. The CB newsletter answers the question “What Can I Do?” with easy to digest, curated actions, to help each of us change our world for the better.