Her district, CA-12, is SF City and County proper; there are probably only 50k techies by any definition in a city of around 800k. I'd estimate around 10-15k voters. Out of that group you probably have a higher than usual number of libertarian or green or other third-party voters too; probably far fewer party-line Democrats.
More seriously, we should get the unions riled about this. Increased police powers and surveillance have not, historically, been kind to labor.
Depending on the quality of your local police, they have nothing to gain and a lot to lose.
This is OK in the House, where people have reasonably proportional representation (although districting is notoriously prone to corruption), but the senate seats and electoral votes tend to belong to the urban areas.
I'd be more than happy to cede everything east of about 121ºW to Nevada. It wouldn't necessarily resolve the problem, but it just feels right.
More generally, I'd note that actual political change often takes decades of struggle. One sees a lot of bitching on this topic, but very little "I sent a check to EFF" and even less "We are organizing for action is this way."
I doubt anyone startup success is attributable to actionless moaning.
Which means Pelosi is free to do anything she wants, as her own party would never restrain her (especially at the time she promotes the agenda of the President from her own party) and Reps have no real political power to oust her. Be thankful to the people of California for this gift that keeps on giving.
The only way I could see a Republican winning SF is if he/she were a fiscal conservative/social libertarian.
Not that high; per current registration data [1], 37,719 registered Republicans of 437,529 total registered voters, so Republicans are 8.62%. Low teens is about what the typical Republican running in San Francisco gets on election day
> The only way I could see a Republican winning SF is if he/she were a fiscal conservative/social libertarian.
If the political mood in San Francisco was running in a way that social libertarian positions were strong enough that they'd get enough liberal voters to hold their breath and vote for a fiscal conservative, then a left-libertarian would probably end up as the Democratic candidate in the general election, and win. (Although the main effect, given the way California's "open primary" works, would likely be a contested primary among Democrats resulting in the two candidates that make it to the general election both being Democrats.)
I suppose, though, if you the the surge of social libertarianism happens after the primary but before the general election, and the Democratic candidate isn't a social libertarian, you might end up with a chance for the Republican. But that's a pretty freakish scenario.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/10/15/pelosi_won...