Ed Jew — the $40,000 man — is out on $135,000 bail and headed for arraignment on 9 felony counts. Know as “Supervisor No” for his record, it appears “no” was also the answer to whether he lived in San Francisco and was honest with investigators.

With a good chance of a special election being combined with the November recall, it is important to consider how this — taken with the recall campaign against Jake McGoldrick in the district to the north — could change the strategic dynamics for ballot measures in San Francisco in the next 12 months.

These two conservative westside districts (the Sunset and Richmond), along with Gavin Newsom’s expensive GOTV effort could make this fall an awful time for progressive initiatives. Pretty much the opposite of next June. San Francisco has always played an important role as an incubator lab for progressive policy that can then be exported across the state and nation. But will this be a year for defense instead?

And what cool ideas would you suggest to take advantage of the overwhelming progressive potential next June?

At this point, even Chris Daly has admitted Gavin Newsom will be re-elected. It is too late to mount a credible campaign. So the question becomes who would be best to throw themselves on the sword. I agree with Mr. Brown on Sheriff Mike Hennessey:

Mike was my first choice for Mayor and I stand by that. The guy’s an unpretentious giant.

I agree, any Sheriff who starts his speech by saying he wants everyone to know he agrees with everything the Public Defender said rocks, yet he’d never do it. But what about….

What about Jake McGoldrick?

He gave the best speech of the day — by far.

And he gets the idea of Wi-Fi way better than any other elected in town. So if you want to go with the Karl Rove school of thinking that you attack on your opponent’s strengths, consider:

“We are more committed than our opponents,” Newsom shouted as he rattled off a list of what he considers to be his accomplishments since taking office in 2004, among them, a plan for universal health care for the uninsured and one to bring free wireless Internet access to the city.

If this is just going to be a debate, McGoldrick is the only one I know who really gets why Newsom’s Wi-Fi sucks. And, if the recall hit the ballot he could probably raise and spend out of two accounts.

Everyone already realizes Newsom will win, but McGoldrick could completely disarm Newsom’s privatization spree that is totally screwing up the City.

Ouch. Talk about anti-climatic. Speech after speech on how it is critical to challenge Gavin Newsom and elected after elected unwilling to run. It was surreal.

(more after the jump)

The last two speakers were Ross Mirkarimi and Chris Daly. The huge crowd was chanting “Run Ross Run” and interrupted his speech on multiple occasions for the chant. Yet he said he wouldn’t run. An audience member challenged him, yet he still wouldn’t run.

Then Daly got up, talked about how crucial it was and told the story of the Golden State Warriors and held up his ‘I Believe’ sign. Just when it seemed he was ready to announce, he said something like “we’ll get it done” and just walked of the stage while “I need a Hero” played and everyone looked at the people next to them in disbelief. It really was surreal. I mean, WTF?

Everyone should now realize Daly was right a full month ago when he said a candidate would have needed to announce two weeks ago to have a chance. That didn’t happen, it didn’t happen today and the whole ordeal was nothing but comedy.

OK, it was more than comedy, there was great networking and important plotting on lots of issues. And Supervisor Jake McGoldrick gave a thunderous speech to kick of his campaign against the fringe group trying to recall him.

It is probably time for people to realize Newsom is going to be mayor for 4 1/2 more years and adjust strategy accordingly. Progressives need to focus on the legislative branch and the ballot box. And on those fronts there were some great conversations today.

But overall, it ended with a huge letdown. It was like being at a concert with lead guitar just wailing out a solo and right at the crescendo the sound system blows.

UPDATE: This morning’s paper:

Tired of waiting for candidates to decide whether to take on the mayor — whose own re-election campaign is chugging along — Supervisor Chris Daly called for a convention, taking place today, to find a challenger.

But whether any of the better-known progressives will announce their candidacy at the Tenderloin meeting is unknown, and Daly said if no one else does by the end of the day, he will.

“Much to my wife’s chagrin,” added Daly, who said anyone who wants a realistic chance of beating Newsom needs to start campaigning now.

Forfeit, indeed.

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Again, here’s a (partial, probably incomplete) list of the bloggers in attendance and whose sites you should visit for more commentary:

Sasha, Luke Thomas and Elaine Santore, H. Brown, Pat Murphy, Paul Hogarth, Gavin Watch (assumed), Chris Daly, SF Mike, SF Party Party, Poor Magazine, Greg Dewar, Josh Wolf, Tim Redmond, Rita

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