San Francisco’s special election for mayor has less than two months to go. According to the latest poll, the race is tight. We’re not exactly blessed with a raft of high-quality polling in this town, though, so caveat emptor. Adding to the “who really knows” of it all, Mission Local’s Joe Eskenazi drew a nice sketch last week of the machinations involved with our ranked ballot system — that is, second and third place votes count too.
In other words, which candidate really has a leg up is anybody’s guess. But let’s venture to agree that Angela Alioto isn’t keeping any of the other candidates up at night.
On the issues, there hasn’t been much to separate London Breed, Jane Kim, and Mark Leno, either. Help for the homeless? Sure. Cleaner, safer streets and lower property crime? Of course.
Oh, wait: housing. If anyone has stuck a neck out, it’s been Breed, who expressed support early and often for former supervisor and state Senator Scott Wiener’s bill in Sacramento, SB 827, which would have loosened local restrictions on dense housing near public transit.
The bill that just died in a state Senate committee. The same bill that our current supervisors opposed by an 8 to 3 vote, joining city officials in many other cities across the state. It’s fair to say SB 827 did not exactly inspire California legislators, who bemoaned that we’re in a housing crisis while doing nothing in response.
Wiener has vowed to bring this back next year in a form that could actually pass, and he should. But in the stretch-run calculus of a race in which the candidates often agree on everything else, housing will have to be the cudgel with which Kim and Leno whack Breed over the head. (Sorry, Mark. Buying londonbreed.com and redirecting it to your site won’t be enough to put you over the top.)
It’s not yet clear how London Breed’s rivals can tell their San Francisco story better than she can.
Let’s see if Breed’s opponents wield it more effectively than their other attempts to kneecap her. The first post-SB 827 salvos are in. The San Francisco Tenants Union has posted an anti-Breed broadside, and Mark Leno has put out an ad that implies the homelessness problem is tied to Breed and the “status quo.”
Leno steers clear of who’s backing whom. But the Tenants Union jams its thumb hard on the developers-are-bad button, reinforcing the charge that the African American Breed is the pawn of rich white men, which infused the air around her now-legendary ouster from the acting mayor’s seat after Ed Lee’s death in January.
Infused isn’t quite the right word. More like stunk it up. SF’s rule that the Board of Supervisors president assumes a suddenly vacated mayor’s chair (it’s how Dianne Feinstein first took the helm after the murders of George Moscone and Harvey Milk) is definitely thorny. Yet the maneuver to deny Breed any advantage heading into the election — rationalized by hand-wringing concerns about the ever-present “greedy developers” — came off as insulting, then became slathered with cynical treacle when District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen, who cast a vote against Breed, delivered an emotional speech in the board chamber. Ronen, after lavishing praise on Breed’s “accomplishments,” called her a puppet of “the same rich white men that steered the policies that have created the mess we are in today.” Then, like an alt-right parody of snowflake liberalism, she went on to profess that she totally feels the pain of black people. And the LGBT community. And Asian Americans. And everyone else who’s not a rich straight white man. Here’s an excerpt:
I know that so much of the American experiment has been 250 years of racism, homophobia, misogyny, ableism, and religious persecution on top of 300 years of vicious slaughter of Native Americans and the unspeakable brutality of slavery in America. And I know that anyone who is not a straight, white, Christian male has been fighting at great cost, for 250 years for equal representation in this country. As a straight, white woman my privilege means I’m in no way qualified to decide which of these candidates’ backgrounds makes them more deserving of the huge advantage of running while having the entire apparatus of the mayor’s office at their disposal. I’m not willing to choose the LGBT community over the African American community or the African American community over the Asian community.
In the context of the evening, it was one of the most pandering, embarrassing moments in city history — and completely worth watching. (Start here, at the 4-hour, 35-minute mark, or read the transcript on her Facebook page.) Speculation is that Breed’s ouster would, in backlash, boost her support among women and African Americans, but there’s really no way to know until the votes are counted.
We also don’t know how much the election will hinge upon housing. But this much seems clear: If you want a lot more housing in San Francisco, affordable and otherwise, vote for Breed. Her victory wouldn’t guarantee a boom, but it would make it much more possible.
If you want more housing, but not market-rate, the other candidates have promised to work those margins, but adding enough housing to keep working-class and middle-class folks in San Francisco is going to require some buy-in from the capitalists. It’s not profit versus nonprofit. It’s both. Breed is the only one who has publicly backed that.
As the San Francisco Chronicle noted in its endorsement of Breed a few days ago, Breed seemed to be the only candidate to be completely on top of the complications of SB 827. Well before it died in Sacramento, she was clear that it had problems needing a fix instead of railing against it.
How her opponents respond, now that Breed has found herself on the wrong side, temporarily or otherwise, of a hot-button fight, could be the separator in this race — especially if the supes rightly felt they had a finger on the public pulse when they opposed SB 827.
Either way, Breed needs to keep imbuing her story with a feel for fine-grain detail — check out her education platform. The Chronicle’s endorsement put it well: “No one has to lecture Breed about the challenge of living hand-to-mouth in this city.” Breed doesn’t just talk wonky policy about housing; she herself grew up in public housing with spotty plumbing in the Western Addition. (Keep that in perspective when your Wi-Fi hotspot acts up.)
We hear from progressives that criminal justice is in desperate need of reform, and that people of color are getting railroaded. All this is true, and Breed can speak to it because she has a brother behind bars. We hear from progressives that the war of drugs has been a complete failure for those deserving support, treatment, and care. Breed knows about this too; her sister overdosed.
It’s not yet clear how Breed’s rivals, who have accomplishments of their own and interesting stories to share, can tell their San Francisco story better than she can. Maybe this was what led to Breed’s removal as acting mayor—the fear from progressives that if they didn’t make a deal to install Mark Farrell in City Hall’s Room 200, they’d be facing near-certain defeat.
We’re not going to endorse Breed or any other candidates. But down the stretch we will be watching who offers details about plans and possible solutions, instead of slogans and cudgels. We hope San Francisco voters do the same.