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About The Bay: Who Is Running For SF Mayor?

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) – While politics in our nation's capital have grabbed most of the headlines recently, there is also a pretty big election coming up in San Francisco - the race for San Francisco mayor.

But are any of the candidates making a dent in the minds of voters?

Bevan Dufty's ad - which features the candidate, a gay father, dancing with his two-year-old daughter - has created a national buzz. But he's not the only one running TV spots. Candidates Tony Hall and Leland Yee have both jumped in with their own ads.

KCBS' Mike Sugerman Reports:

But as KCBS' Mike Sugerman found out, not many registered voters could name more than one candidate.

CBS SF blogger Beth Spotswood said that she has found the same problem when talking to some of her friends.

"I was shocked that many of these friends of mine, who are smart, intelligent women, thought that Gavin Newsom was still mayor of San Francisco," said Spotswood

This has to be discouraging to current mayor Ed Lee and the candidates who are spending money just trying to get noticed, said University of San Francisco Professor of Politics Corey Cook.

"I don't like to use the word boring because I think these candidates are interesting," said Cook. "Here's my position on clean energy, followed by I agree, no I agree more, no I agree only slightly less. You get done with 12 responses like that and you think, what is this election about after all?"

But Cook said that the money and time is not being wasted because this part of the campaign is aimed at neighborhood groups and newspaper endorsements, which voters may look at later when they do start to pay attention. Any impression that is being made is important because the election is less than a month away.

You can hear Mike Sugerman's About the Bay reports on Mondays at 6:40am, 7:40am and 8:40am on KCBS All News 740AM and 106.9FM.

(Copyright 2011 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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