CPR; The Dec. 12 death of San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee from a heart attack has set the city up for another of the periodic battles between liberal Democrats and even more liberal Democrats for control of City Hall. Members of the former group are known as moderates in San Francisco parlance.
“The voter coalitions that elect moderates in San Francisco are Chinese voters, white homeowners, older renters, and the 10 Republicans left in town, combined with unions that represent building trades, police officers and firefighters,” political consultant Jim Ross told the San Francisco Chronicle the day after Lee’s death. Progressives dominate every other category of voters, especially young tech workers and social justice activists.
While many other names have been mentioned, here are the most prominent likely or declared candidates in the June 5 special election to serve out the last year and a half of moderate Lee’s term:
– Acting Mayor London Breed, part of the moderate faction on the city-county Board of Supervisors who shares Lee’s view that dealing with homelessness is the city’s most important issue. Breed, pictured, is the first African-American woman to serve as mayor. There is a possibility that supervisors will name an interim mayor rather than give Breed months to use her authority as both mayor and supervisor to build support for her expected mayoral bid. This could be supported by moderate as well as progressive supervisors in a city full of ambitious politicians.
– Supervisor Jane Kim, part of the progressive wing, filed paperwork to run for mayor on Wednesday. Kim lost a state Senate bid to moderate Supervisor Scott Weiner last year. She has won national and international attention for her proposed state “robot tax” assessing fees on companies whose use of robots or algorithms has led to the loss of jobs. The money from the fees would be used for worker retraining and other programs meant to minimize the impact of losing jobs to technology.
– State Sen. Mark Leno announced in May that he would run for mayor in 2019 after Lee was termed out. Now he’s running in the June special election, touting his “progressive vision for our city, grounded in a commitment to affordability and civil rights.” A former Assembly member and supervisor, he’s won a reputation as an energetic policy wonk with interest in a wide range of issues, from gender and transgender rights to prison and criminal justice reform to the environment.
– Former San Francisco Supervisor Angela Alioto, daughter of former Mayor Joseph Alioto, has taken out papers to run. MORE
They’re fighting for a chance to steer the Bus.. after it ran off
of the cliff.
This might qualify under the narcissicism of small differences.
Dirty rotten shame, too.
The bus was all democrats and there were two empty seats.
So they will run multiple “moderates” to dilute the vote and insure the one marxist gets elected.
Rather than spending all that money on campaigns and holding an actual election, maybe San Francrisco should select their mayor by holding a Scream About Trump contest. All they’d need is a sound intensity meter and a stopwatch. The candidate with the highest watt-seconds/meter² score wins!
This is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Moderate in SF still means progressive. Years ago Gavin Newsom was the ‘moderate’ vs a Green Party candidate.
Yeah, I thought that was funny. Moderates and progs in CA? No diff.
Crazy vs. Crazier
That’s easy, whoever has the most Carbon credits wins !
California moderates are European right wing neo-Nazis.
Come to think of it, California moderates are Californian right wing neo-Nazis, as well.