Fans and hate-watchers of local politics have been following the race for District 3 supervisor since March, when former D3 Supe Aaron Peskin announced that he wanted to re-occupy the seat currently held by mayorally-appointed Julie Christensen. Since then, many of the city's most significant power players have thrown their weight behind Christensen, indicating that this race is about more than D3, as a Peskin triumph "could upset the business-friendly applecart at City Hall" (quoth the Chron). Though early voting began on October 5, unless something crazy goes down between now and Election Day (November 3), pundits say that the outcome is impossible to predict. What we do know is that a lot of time and effort has gone into this race! Let's quantify that with some numbers.

• $200,000: The amount of money Christensen has raised from "Mayor Ed Lee and his tech and business allies such as Ron Conway — along with the police and building trade unions"
• $210,000: The amount of money Peskin has raised from "The teachers, nurses, restaurant workers, public employee unions and millionaire Clint Reilly"
• $1 million: The total amount of money the Peskin and Christensen camps are expected to spend by the time this race is over
• 10,000: The number of voters that $1 million is trying to influence
• 41%: According to the most recent polling numbers, the percent of voters who say they will choose Christensen
• 38%: According to the most recent polling numbers, the percent of voters who say they will choose Peskin

All facts and figures: Legalizing pot on back burner as Newsom focuses on gun control, SF Chronicle, October 18 2015

Previously: Veteran Progressive Aaron Peskin Wants His Board Of Supervisors Seat Back
Big Names Throw Their Weight Behind Julie Christensen, Against Aaron Peskin

Campaign finance rules limit the amount of money any one donor can give a candidate for San Francisco office. But those rules don't limit something called "behested payments," in which pols ask for, and receive, massive amounts of dough for specific projects. As the Chron notes, some see these types of donations as "a smart way to get money out of the wealthy for the public good during the economic boom and resulting affordability crisis," while others "say behested payments are a way to skirt campaign finance rules and often come with strings attached." Whatever the case, Mayor Ed Lee has sure gotten a lot of them! Let's take a look at some of the numbers.

• $1.2 million: The total amount of behested payments Gavin Newsom asked for — and got — during his 5.5 years as mayor
• $10 million: The total amount of behested payments Lee has asked for — and gotten — so far during his tenure as mayor
• $6.8 million: The amount of money Lee asked for, and got, from Google in June 2014 to cover free Muni low-income kids
• $580,000: The total amount of money Lee raised for a June 19 party to celebrate City Hall's centennial
• $430,000: The portion of that party fund that came from donors including AT&T, Genentech and CH2M Hill
• $150,000: The portion of that party fund that came from PG&E
• $10,000: The amount of money Lee asked for, and got from Coca-Cola to fund a city jobs program for youth at the same time the pop company was fighting City Hall over a proposed sugary drinks tax

Related: Another Multi-Million Dollar City Hall Renovation For SF: Half Taxpayer Bucks, Half Donor Dough

All facts and figures: Mayor Ed Lee has knack for raking in big-bucks donations, May 16, 2015

"Everyone has to be ready to have difficult conversations NOW," said Kate Kendall (Exective Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and one of the architects of the No On Prop 8 campaign) at an event last night that was a hybrid of town hall, panel discussion, and mass-group-therapy. She was talking about having challenging talks with potential allies who still need some winning-over, but she might as well have been referring to the event itself. It was, by the standards of consensus-happy San Francisco, a pretty tough room.

Onstage were a handful of folks who held varying levels of responsibility for Prop 8, and were now exhibiting varying levels of sheepishness. Mark Leno, Tom Ammiano, and Andrea Shorter kicked things off with some nice words -- particularly well-received was Mark's observation that since the vote a few years ago, gay marriage is now 18 points closer to being the official will of the people, and those are 18 points that our enemies will never get back. There was a short introduction of the moderators (two local journalists) and the panelists (Field Director Dan Hawes, Campaign Manager Steve Smith, Director of API Equality Tawal Panyacosit, NCLR's Kate Kendall, and Equality California's Geoff Kors), and then the floor was opened to the generally irate public.

Kate Kendall, in our opinion, was a real charmer -- identifying mistakes, apologizing, speaking honestly while still exorcising diplomacy. On the other side of the charm chart was probably Steve Smith, who was casual and calm but matter-of-fact and not particularly contrite. He was particularly prone to using a tense we've heard called the "Past Exonerative": . For example, "it should have taken 36 to 48 hours" to respond to the ads about education, he said, but instead, "it took nine days." Oh, really, that's good to know, Mister Campaign Manager.

Steve also mentioned that he managed the No On Prop 4 campaign at the same time that he was working on No On Prop 8. What a busy guy! We wonder how he could possibly have found the time to simultaneously manage both high-profile projects. Must be really good at multitasking, amirite?

After the jump: juicy gossip.

Noted Republican, Silicon Valley resident, and gay-marriage hater Meg Whitman is all set to take over Sacramento, at least according to an AP article. "The person was not authorized to talk publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity," the article boasts, going on to say, "He [the secret source] said the 52-year-old Republican hopes to succeed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2011 but is not ready to make a formal announcement." So, we guess, she's officially throwing her can of Aqua Net in the ring.

In addition to serving as a national co-chair of John McCain's disastrous presidential bid, Whitman just stepped down from the boards of eBay, Procter & Gamble Co. and DreamWorks SKG last week. She is also a monstrous homophobe who should not -- and will not -- run the state of California. (In her defense, she does look like an aging Real Housewife of Orange County, so, you know, she has that going for her.)

Back in October, the Yes on 8 "people" challenged California's Superintendent of Schools, Jack O'Connell, to a debate about gay marriage. According to Yes, even the remotest possibility of learning anything about gay marriage is harmful to children. Nothing hateful about that!

Anyway, the side refuse to debate. In fact, not only did (self-described) Campaign Manager Steve Smith hide from the debate, but his response was obscured from public view in a hard-to-find PDF. (But we dug up the text and included it after the jump.)

But now there's a debate happening for real! Gloria Allred and Andy Pugno will argue about how California defines marriage On January 14 at The National Center for the Preservation of Democracy, 111 North Central Ave, Los Angeles. (Gloria is one of the lawyers suing to overturn Prop 8; Andy is a lawyer who opposes California's equal protection clause.) Tickets are $20, and throwing of vegetables is strictly forbidden.

This is a fight that, obviously, the gays will win in the long run. In fact, the run probably isn't even that long. Getting the anti-marriage folks on record, explaining just how crazy their position is, can only hasten along the cause of civil equality.

Disclosure: SFist_Matt is the creator of Stop8.org, and does behind-the-scenes organizing for the gars.

Last night's Marriage Equality Community Forum was neat! It started with a brief hello from former New Paltz mayor Jason West. We tried to get a picture, but as you can see, he is simply too dreamy and wonderful to be captured by normal photographic equipment.

The meeting was part of a statewide effort to collect data from everyone at a grassroots level. The "official" marriage activists want to compile an analysis of what went wrong and what went right. If you missed the meeting, you can still contribute -- just fill out the survey on Marriage Equality's site. Molly McKay, the forum's moderator, indicated that the report would be made public.

The evening was kicked off by some speakers: Shayna Gelender from the ACLU explained the current status of the legal challenge to Prop 8. Next, Andrea Shorter explained ... well, we're not sure. We like Andrea -- she's gentle and heartfelt -- but with all her dramatic pauses and lengthy digressions, we sometimes have trouble catching her meaning. And then finally, Sister Edith Myflesh (out of uniform!) talked about outreach. The protests were great, he said, but we need to take those demonstrations to other communities. "They need to see real queer people," he said, and mentioned an upcoming bus trip to Fresno. The audience audibly gasped.

And then, it was on with the discussions.

So what's the deal with the next round of Prop 8 protests? Oh, we are so glad you asked.

The next big one in SF is this Saturday at 10:30am at City Hall. The organizers put out a call for help -- they need folks to put up flyers, among other things. So, if you've got some spare time, what worthier cause could there be?

There's also a protest brewing on Friday at 6pm outside the Chron. Those protesters think the Chron under-reported the size of protest crowds. We're dubious about picketing the Chron -- seems like kind of a waste of energy, right? Okay, fine, they under-reported the crowd; but is that really our biggest worry right now? It just feels like a distraction, is all.

And that brings us to our even BIGGER concern: when the official no-on-8 campaign imploded after the election, it left behind a power vacuum. And now that vacuum is crammed with tons of grassroots organizers, many of whom are working independently and failing to join forces with each other. Everyone wants to be in charge of their own little campaign, nobody knows what the other organizers are planning, they're failing to share resources, and all we can see are missed opportunities for us to unite behind one strong solid message or goal.

Are we protesting Mormons? Or Catholics? Or newspapers? Are we running a boycott, or supporting lawsuits, or soliciting donations, or making noise? Do we even know what we're doing, or are we just jerking off?