SAN FRANCISCO — At position 9 in the queue outside the Richmond District recreation hall, our observation began. The subject was Connie Chan, a city supervisor and the candidate endorsed by Representative Nancy Pelosi to succeed her in California, speaking before two hundred locals beneath a banner bearing both names. Chan told the gathering she would vote to "end a genocide in Gaza" and called for a "full arms embargo" on Israel. Above the pledge, on the same leaflet, sat the sponsor's seal, a circular stamp bearing the sponsor's likeness. The sponsor's record with the shipments in question is long. The pledge is new. The leaflet did not appear to notice.
We counted. In a nineteen-minute address, Chan spoke the sponsor's name eleven times, the word "embargo" twice, and the phrase "end a genocide in Gaza" once, drawing nine seconds of applause. The word "Pelosi" appeared four times on the leaflet; the word "embargo" appeared once. Chan apologized twice: for arriving late, and for the heat. Nobody we sampled could explain the second apology.
Behind the main queue stood a second queue, which locals call a "waiting list." It held locals waiting to enter the photograph queue, which had been declared full. The locals had built a queue for the queue and administered it with clipboards. At the photograph line, each local received eight seconds beside the candidate, one handshake, and one utterance of "we're so excited." All two hundred fourteen who passed through said it; the candidate returned it to two hundred nine.
"The seal gets them through the door," said Marisela Ochoa, the campaign's Deputy Canvass Coordinator, squaring a stack of leaflets against a table edge. "The embargo keeps them in the room. It is the same piece of paper. Nobody has complained."
At position 3 in the waiting list stood Dale Funicane, a retired postal inspector who had arrived at 5:40 a.m. "Nancy sent the weapons her whole career," he said, with total serenity. "Connie will stop them. That is why Nancy picked her. The seal goes on first. That is how you know it is safe." He asked if we were queueing. We were not. He advanced one position.
We departed at 8:12 p.m. Final tally: leaflets distributed, three hundred; seals per leaflet, one; pledges to halt the shipments, one; references to the sponsor's record, zero. The leaflet is printed on one side, and both statements fit. We archived a copy. It weighs four grams.
