Election ’08 — j. style

With the big election coming up in the fall, as always the Jewish vote will be highly coveted. Well, we have news for Senators McCain and Obama: J. already has the Jewish vote in the bag.

And with this year’s Readers’ Choice Awards, that bag remains pretty big. Our annual poll is back, nearly 100 categories strong, in subjects ranging from Most Innovative Synagogue to Favorite Cosmetic Surgeon (but, thankfully, not including Most Creative Cosmetic Surgeon).

We traded up on a few categories this year. Favorite videographer, party planner and photographer all went from a single Bay Area-wide voting option last year to a more competitive regional vote. But as they say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. For the most part, this year’s categories haven’t changed all that much from last year’s.

True, we could have added new categories — like favorite hair replacement product, favorite Hollywood career trainwreck (Go, Lindsay!) or favorite under-.500 starting pitcher for a local baseball team.

But we’re bigger than that.

As we’ve noticed over the last few years, we have many repeat winners. Holy Land and Shangri-La restaurants have won our poll so many times, we’re thinking of giving them jerseys just so we can retire them.

But you can never second guess our Readers’ Choice. voters. They have a collective mind of their own.

This year, for example, we had more ties than ever before. Richard Rozen and Dave Rothman tied for favorite S.F. dentist. Mills Peninsula and Stanford Medical Center tied for favorite South Bay hospital. In the category of favorite non-sectarian retirement home, we had two ties for two different regions. We even had ties in the categories of favorite indoor party planner and favorite outdoor party planner. How do we explain that to the kids?

Anyway, go ahead and plunge into the 2008 Readers’ Choice Awards. And while you’re reading, whisper a little thank-you to j.’s tireless summer interns, Ariel Rosen, Laura Rumpf and Ana Forman, all of whom labored long and hard to put this always-fun feature together for you.

In that same spirit, we want to thank you, j. readers and the entire Bay Area Jewish community, for your many-splendored diversity. You’ve got our vote.

— dan pine

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