My question for him is why he thinks this post will do better, as opposed to presenting a viewpoint he agrees with - a reasonable but very different goal.

In theory we should be more reasonable when discussing means rather than goals since clippy and a baby eater can both easily agree on which strategy is paper-clip-maximizing given the same information and resources. I honestly didn't expect this article to be seen as being partisan or political because the author explicitly endorses the goals San Francisco seems to pursue and just criticizes the means by giving examples of how they don't seem to be working well.

Despite its good intentions, San Francisco is not leading the country in gay marriage. Despite its good intentions, it is not stopping wars. Despite its spending more money per capita on homelessness than any comparable city, its homeless problem is worse than any comparable city's. Despite its spending more money per capita, period, than almost any city in the nation, San Francisco has poorly managed, budget-busting capital projects, overlapping social programs no one is certain are working, and a transportation system where the only thing running ahead of schedule is the size of its deficit.

I find it amusing that if I was to write out a well argued or researched post questioning whether any particular item among these should be a goal for San Francisco to work towards it would probably be considered less political. This seems to indicate that doing politics, at least here, is not only not about policies as Robin Hanson says, but it may not be about values either.