Residents across San Francisco have noticed a surge of campaign materials from Saikat Chakrabarti's congressional bid — and not in a good way. Posters jammed into apartment doors, flyers scattered across sidewalks, stacks of literature abandoned in building stairwells. For a city already fighting a public perception problem around cleanliness, it's not a great look.

Let's be clear: this isn't about the candidate's politics. Every campaign distributes literature. That's democracy. But there's a difference between strategic outreach and a saturation bombing of expensive glossy mailers that residents didn't ask for and immediately throw away. At some point, "getting your name out there" crosses the line into becoming part of the problem you're promising to solve.

One local resident put it bluntly: "I'm starting to feel borderline harassed by the amount of expensive glossy cardstock showing up in my mail or being shoved under my front door. Who is this for? I bet if you go to the dump right now, the majority of paper will be glossy campaign card stock crap that we all just end up throwing away."

Another SF resident reported the campaign had knocked on their door four times, including twice during dinner. "Take the hint already."

Here's the fiscal responsibility angle nobody in the campaign seems to have considered: all of this costs money. Donors — whoever they are — are bankrolling a print blitz that's generating more landfill than enthusiasm. That's not grassroots energy. That's a paper mill with a candidate's face on it.

If you want to represent San Francisco, start by respecting the people who live here. Don't litter their streets and clog their mailboxes while telling them you'll make the city better. Residents can see the contradiction, even if your campaign can't.

Clean up your own mess first. Then we'll talk about what you can do for the rest of us.