The current barrage of political mailers has become something of a spectator sport for residents, with attack ads against Assembly candidate Saikat Chakrabarti reaching peak absurdity. The big scandalous revelation that's supposed to make you clutch your pearls? He's from Maryland. That's it. That's the attack.

In a city where roughly half the population moved here from somewhere else, the "outsider" line is a particularly bizarre angle. As one local pointed out, "This may shock many… but Scott Wiener isn't from SF. He is from New Jersey." Chakrabarti himself jumped into the conversation to set the record straight — he actually grew up in Texas and has lived in SF since 2009, raising a daughter here. "No shade to Maryland though," he added. "Hear you all have good... crabs?"

The mailers also breathlessly reference a "$1.6M mansion" — a number that, as one SF resident noted, is "about the last place that sounds credible." That buys you a modest two-bedroom in most neighborhoods. Some mansion.

Then there's the production quality issue. One resident couldn't help but ask: "Do only two photos of him exist?" Apparently the opposition research budget went to card stock, not Getty Images.

Perhaps the best moment of the cycle so far: one local admitted they "100% thought the 'DO YOU WANT EVIL NERDY TECH LOSERS RUNNING SHIT?' flyer was talking about him, but it was actually in support of him." When your own supporters' messaging is indistinguishable from an attack ad, maybe it's time to rethink the creative brief.

Here's the thing that actually bothers us at The Dissent: these glossy mailer campaigns cost serious money. As one Bay Area resident put it, sending piles of expensive card stock is "basically them saying here, you throw this away." It's not just wasteful — it tells you something about how these campaigns think about spending. If this is how they treat donor dollars, imagine what they'll do with your tax dollars.

Vote for whoever you want. But maybe be a little suspicious of the candidate whose primary strategy is a recycling bin's worth of paper that says absolutely nothing.