Following up on the saga of the DCCC takeover, Matier and Ross report’s that Fiona Ma’s coup de grace to former chair Scott Wiener was not about a quid pro quo, it was payback to Gavin Newsom.

The big flip: Looks like gubernatorial politics played a big hand in Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin’s narrow victory as head of the San Francisco Democratic Central Committee.

Mayor Gavin Newsom is exploring a run for governor – and would no doubt like to have the local party’s backing. The mayor worked the phones hard to try to keep his dual detractors, Peskin and Supervisor Chris Daly, from taking control.

The key vote in Wednesday night’s showdown came from Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, D-San Francisco.

Gay activist Scott Wiener, who was running for re-election as central committee chairman, says Ma promised to support him two months ago – only to flip and vote for Peskin, despite a long history of political run-ins with the board president.

Ma said she never promised Wiener her support. While she and Peskin certainly have had their “ups and downs” over the years, she said, none of it compares to the slights she’s suffered at the hands of Newsom and his chief political strategist, Eric Jaye.

Namely, Jaye running the campaign of Ma’s Assembly opponent, Janet Reilly, and fueling the story that appeared in our column about Ma’s relationship with a lobbyist pushing electric meter technology on the city.

Ma also points out that Newsom didn’t endorse her for the Board of Supervisors or the Assembly.

Upshot: When it came time to vote Wednesday, Ma handed her proxy to former Public Utilities Commission boss Susan Leal – whom Newsom recently fired – and she delivered the knife to the mayor’s pick.

As for the governor’s race? “I am urging Jerry Brown to run for governor,” Ma said.

I’m not sure which is worse, a quid pro quo or this. The deal I can sort of understand, but to knock someone off because you have a beef with another person, and to use a respected person like Susan Leal to do the dirty work is sad. This town’s political scene needs an enema.

The SF Bay Guardian released their endorsements for local races and state propositions. These tend to be some of the most influential endorsements in the City, and to a lesser extent, in the region. As always, they do a laudable job presenting a thorough analysis of each race and the relative merits of each position. Hats off to Tim Redmond and the crew at the SFBG.  Here’s a summary of their positions, and I’ll discuss some of them over the flip.

Prop 98: No, No, No

Prop 99: Yes, Yes, Yes

SD-03: Mark Leno

SD-09: Loni Hancock

AD-13: Tom Ammiano

AD-14: Kriss Worthington

CA-08 (Pelosi): No Endorsement

Let’s start with Props 98 and 99. (I work for No on 98) They state the position that progressives across the state have come to, whether Jon Coupal thought the opposite might be true, Prop 98 is a disaster for California. And they even give us a nice little way to remember which is the good one: “We hate 98, but 99 is fine.” Cute.

On to the Senate Races, surely the most watched position in this endorsement slate was the issue of SD-03 (aka Rumble in the Bubble, that’s mine, I want royalties for that, even though I do work for Mark Leno.)  The BG has endorsed both Leno and Migden in the past, but they haven’t been so into Joe Nation. (I don’t know if they ever endorsed him in a primary…he ran unopposed for at least one term in the Assembly.) So, this came down to a decision between the two San Francisco gay candidates.

The BG sees strengths and weaknesses in both candidates. Migden has passed some good pieces of legislation like community choice and toxics legislation, and Leno has a record of protecting vulnerable populations from evictions and passing the marriage bill. But they also disliked Leno’s close ties to Mayor Newsom and Migden’s connections to Gap Founder Don Fischer who is a huge “school choice advocate.”

The BG, like me, is a fan of primary challenges in this one-party town., and they laud the attention the mostly absentee Migden has now paid to the district. But toss Migden’s “imperious and arrogant” ways to her campaign finance troubles, and the BG tilted towards Leno. “In the end, we’ve decided – with much enthusiasm and some reservations – to endorse Assemblymember Mark Leno.”

SD-09: Loni Hancock. I’m a fan of both Hancock and Chan. Whomever wins will be a great Senator to replace the, shall we say “imperious,” Don Perata. The BG went with Hancock based upon her work on the budget.

AD-13: Ammiano. He’s running unopposed, but that is, in and of itself, is a testament to Ammiano. People in SF love the guy, for good reason. He’s great personally as well as politically.

AD-14: Kriss Worthington. There are some great candidates here, but Kriss Worthington, the openly gay Berkeley Councilman that has been the heart of Berkeley’s progressive movement, for years will be a great legislator. He’s willing to stand alone for progressive values, if need be.  And, in Sacramento, need exists. Often.

CA-08: The Guardian chose not to endorse Speaker Pelosi, stating that she no longer represents San Francisco’s progressive values.

I’ll leave the other races to the Guardian’s excellent endorsement editorial, save one where I think they got it wrong. That is the SF DCCC endorsement of the so-called HOPE Slate. Besides the obvious play off of Obama’s campaign, my issue is with a few members of the slate.  Specifically, the inclusion of two San Francisco supervisors on the slate. Now, I understand that the Supervisors want to ensure that their political positions get into the Party’s apparatus, but frankly, the point of the DCCC should be less about policy positions and grandstanding and more about organizing Democrats in San Francisco to ensure turnout.

I understand that the endorsements of the party have a very strong impact upon the vote for local issues here in San Francisco. But it is hard to argue that the SF Democratic Party has been anything other than progressive in the last two years. And furthermore, while hope is terrific and all, after all I am an Obama supporter, the results of elections depends on the hard work of registering voters and turning them out. Under the leadership of Scott Wiener, the SF DCCC has done just that. SF is one of the few counties to increase Democratic percentages during 2007. Fighting the battle against increased apathy and DTS registrations, we’ve been winning.

Scott has been an enormous part of that success and deserves re-election to the DCCC and to the chair.

I’m pretty involved in San Francisco politics, but I try to balance Calitics out.  I’m going to spend some time on local politics for a second, specifically to talk about the Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC). I have a number of friends who are running for the DCCC, but I want to highlight a few of these folks. While I don’t always agree with the expense of the DCCC campaigns, I think the DCCC has an important role, and these candidates would fill that role well.

First, Nicole Sarabia Rivera currently works for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as a field represenative. She helped found Good Ol’ Girls, a progressive political and social networking group.  In 2006 she formed lefton580.org (no longer active website) that organized a ride board to help get volunteers out to Jerry McNerney’s district. She helped with the Democratic Party of Orange County’s Next Leaders Program (see video), Tom Umberg’s campaign for Orange County Supervisor, and Lou Correa’s victorious campaign for Senate.

Nicole will has a background in outreach to communities of color and disadvantaged communities. Both of these areas could certainly use a boost from Nicole’s enthusiasm.

Next, Luke Klipp is the president of the San Francisco Young Democrats and a board member of the Alice B Toklas LGBT Democratic Club.  He currently works for Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval, and has a strong background in city policy from his time as a budget analyst. He is always available for the important progressive causes, for registering voters, the whole shebang. Also, both Luke and Nicole will be the youngest candidates at 30 years of age at the time of the election on June 3.

Scott Wiener is the current chair of the SF Democratic Party, and under his leadership, the party has registered thousands of voters. In fact, SF was one of the counties in the state to increase its Democratic voter percentage during Scott’s relatively short tenure on the DCCC. While others may tell you that his leadership hasn’t been that important to the success of the DCCC and the party would be fine without him, I can tell you that is simply not true. He does an excellent job of reaching out and forming relationships with people from all walks of life in San Francisco.

Finally, I’d like to recommend a vote for Laura Spanjian as well. While we disagree on our selection of presidential candidates, one cannot argue with Laura’s dedication to Hillary Clinton. She traveled to several states (hey, perhaps we offset each other ;), and her tireless effort will be sure to carry over to whomever our nominee is for November.

There are several other worthy candidates in AD-13, and you get to vote for 8 more, but I wanted to highlight these 4 because I know the SF-DCCC would benefit from their presence.