A mysterious van has been spotted rolling through San Francisco streets, plastered with attack messaging aimed at Saikat Chakrabarti — the progressive insurgent candidate and former chief of staff to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The man apparently linked to the stunt? Conor Johnston, a local political provocateur whose greatest hits include dressing up as a "Styrofoam monster" to mock London Breed's environmental record and holding a sign outside Daniel Lurie's campaign launch reading "my cat is more qualified than Dan."

Say what you will — the man commits to the bit.

But beneath the circus tent, there's a real question SF voters should be asking: What exactly would any of these candidates actually do for the city in Congress? As one local put it bluntly, "I don't know what Saikat will do for San Francisco and that's what's important when electing a Congress person. So far his ads have been basically going into Congress to war with everybody because he doesn't think they're as pure. Laudable but what does that bring to San Francisco?"

That's the right question. This district doesn't need another culture warrior who plays well on national cable news. It needs someone who understands that San Francisco has real, grinding fiscal and infrastructure problems — a transit system bleeding money, a housing market strangled by decades of anti-building policy, and a city budget that treats accountability as optional.

Meanwhile, the broader field isn't exactly inspiring confidence either. Another SF resident, commenting on one rival candidate's housing stance, noted: "She benefits from rent control but is staunchly against market-rate construction" — the kind of cognitive dissonance that has defined SF policymaking for a generation.

Attack vans are funny. They make good content. But five weeks out from this election, voters deserve more than political theater from any side. We need candidates who can articulate how they'll fight for fiscal sanity, housing construction, and actual results — not just how creatively they can troll each other.

As one exhausted SF resident summed it up: "I'll be glad when this election is over."

Same.