Sunday, June 01, 2003. Last night the Jim Reid for Mayor Committee missed a truly golden opportunity to get name recognition, get signatures, and contact people who could and would contribute money and influence to our campaign.

We have a rare chance of circumstances to win this election in 2003. We cannot continue to miss golden opportunities as we did last night. We could have touched millionaire author Danielle Steel and billionaire Rob McKay personally last night, but we were invisible. The Candidate stood on the street last night hearing voices in the back of his mind saying that Jim Reid in a one-person campaign. He knows better and he chose not to stand in his suit alone with a big sign saying, “Home at Hunters Point.” He stood almost invisible on the sidewalk in front of the Opera House, watching 20,000 healthy, wealthy, influential people walk past him.

Earlier in the day, the Candidate stood alone in Gavin Newsom’s Signatures In Lieu rally. Gavin had 55 volunteers on the street at 55 different locations and 500 volunteers with cardboard-backed petitions, ready to go out to those 55 locations to gather endorsement signatures, and Gavin spoke of the critical importance of the early voter endorsement with Sigs in Lieu. Newsom publicly recognized Reid and his crowd cheered. However, Reid stood alone. We had 3,000 “Home at Hunters Point” handout cards printed in ShelterOne yesterday by a volunteer Dal. We had eight volunteers ready to gather signatures and pass out those cards to three thousand of the 1% best voters in the city. No one stepped up to the plate to organize those volunteers and we failed Big Time last night. Opportunities are like buses and we failed to step onto the golden bus last night.

We need someone in this campaign other than the Candidate to take responsibility for looking ahead at opportunities that are coming. Union Street Fair is today and yesterday and the candidate is too tired to go. We missed Bay to Breakers completely, but for Mai Kai Lee standing on the sideline at 6th Avenue holding a sign. The Candidate is a terrible volunteer coordinator and we will fail if we rely on him to organize who is present at public events.

Every member of this committee has a great opportunity to have a high-paying influential city job once we win this election and the opportunity to solve the social problem they most care about once we win Room 200. If we passively campaign and volunteer a little, we will all fail in our social responsibility as enlightened citizens. Perhaps our New Jersey patron should take a few weeks off from his NYC job, come out to San Francisco, and organize the campaign. Remote organization is not doing the trick. We can win this election and make an incredible difference in the lives of 10,000 homeless people in San Francisco, then a million homeless people in America, if we get Jim Reid elected mayor of San Francisco. We can make a tremendous difference in the lives of 100,000 poor and working-class tenants in San Francisco if we get Jim Reid elected mayor of San Francisco.

We are not going to get Jim Reid elected by the passive volunteering we had last night. The Candidate is ill from the stress of trying to do too much. He has lost his voice and his ears ache. The landlord is still on his case, and he and ShelterOne can still be evicted before the election. There was a note from the landlord on his door when he returned from the Black and White Ball after midnight last night.

Our campaign needs to have active volunteers who will take on a task 100% and have a backup person in the wings ready to jump in and take full responsibility for the event should #1 withdraw or fail to do the job. Many very capable volunteers show up at our door who are passionate about some issue, and we fail to give them responsibility and guide them along.

We could have gone up 2% in the polls because of our percentages at the B & W Ball, but we were not there.

The Pride parade is in a month and we could go up 5% in the polls if we organize a huge percentage in that parade. We could gather 10,000 signatures that day if we have 100 dedicated volunteers.

The candidate may stay in bed today. Let’s win this election! We can and we must for the little people who need our help and do not have the vision to help themselves.

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