December 18, 2002

The agony of defeat
In District Eight, the progressives lost a race that almost everyone agrees they should have won.

By Savannah Blackwell

BY 8: 05 Dec. 10 night, moments after elections chief John Arntz announced the results of the early absentee ballots, political consultant Jim Stearns knew it was over.

Bevan Dufty, former lobbyist and loyal aide to Mayor Willie Brown, was leading community activist Eileen Hansen 57 to 43 percent. And while in real terms the margin was just 1,200 votes, Stearns could see the problem: Dufty, who had come in second in the general election, had obviously put together a strong campaign – and Hansen would have a hard time making up the difference.

While Hansen did better among those who voted on Election Day, she never came close in the runoff: in the final count, Dufty won by more than 1,000 votes.

And this time, the progressives couldn't blame it on money: Stearns coordinated the expenditure of more than $70,000 in soft money that the city's unions and a tenants' organizations and the Harvey Milk Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Democratic Club had put up on behalf of Hansen.

Progressive activists gathered at Café Flore on Market Street were already somber, sad, and frustrated when they saw the early returns, even though Hansen told her supporters to remain upbeat. "I just can't imagine that we can lose this thing!" she said.

But lose she did. And the startling defeat for a strong candidate has left the city's progressives, who celebrated a triumphant victory two years ago with the help of independents and neighborhood activists, scrambling to figure out what went wrong – and what to do about it.

It's always easy to point fingers and criticize a losing campaign. And trying to draw sweeping, citywide conclusions from one district race is always imprecise.

But political observers say there were some important lessons in Dufty's victory that progressives can't afford to ignore.

"[Dufty] used the slogan 'It's all about the neighborhood,'" San Francisco pollster David Binder said. "And that couldn't be more true. Downtown is figuring out how to run moderate candidates that are electable.

"In the [first district campaign] the Brown/moderate forces were trying to run candidates that didn't have neighborhood credentials. From now on, you're going to see them running moderates who come from the neighborhood."

In District Four, Fiona Ma, an aide to state senator John Burton, beat small-business owner Ron Dudum – but that race had fewer citywide implications. Most progressives joined with the Democratic Party machine in backing Ma.

The machine wakes up

In other words, the political operatives behind what's left of the old Burton-Brown machine have wised up. In 2000 the reintroduction of district elections found the city's downtown and machine heavies acting arrogant and sloppy. They were awash in hundreds of thousands of dollars in soft money, but they took a beating at the polls anyway.

That year, moderates joined with progressives to unceremoniously dump almost every single Brown-friendly incumbent on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. The economy was booming, but the average San Franciscan was frightened that he or she would be its next victim and get forced out of the city by escalating rents. "Cronyism" was a buzzword in the 2000 campaigns, and it wasn't lost on voters that the flurry of sweetheart deal-making in Brown's offices had become the stuff of an FBI investigation.

But as the economy has faltered, and the dot-com boom has gone bust, the fear that Brown had turned the city into his own private fiefdom has been replaced by something different: the fear that no elected leader has any insight into or vision of how to deal with the most pressing issues of the day, including homelessness and an anticipated $200 million budget shortfall.

Brown was so secure in 2000 that he tried to shove candidates with no neighborhood credentials whatsoever down voters' throats. Remember Chris Dittenhafer, the bland, carpetbagging bank manager who tried to run against Chris Daly? It didn't work, and the machine took note. Dufty is hardly a Dittenhafer. He has a real, long-established connection to the Castro and Noe Valley Districts, having dealt for years with San Francisco residents' issues as the mayor's director of neighborhood services and as an aide to former supervisor Susan Leal.

Even organizers in Hansen's camp noted that Dufty ran a campaign in which he made a point of making voters feel that it was about them – not him. And he promised to use his city hall experience to deal with the issues they cared about. One mailer read, "We need a supervisor who understands: Everyday things matter in our neighborhoods."

"For a lot of people, it comes down to whether they think [a candidate] can take care of the basics – like the need for a stop sign," Jeff Sheehy told us. Sheehy is a gay-rights activist who coauthored the city's domestic partners' benefits law, served as president of the Milk Club, and supported Sup. Tom Ammiano for years. He now serves on the local Democratic County Central Committee and voted for Dufty.

Hansen said that in a poor economy, Dufty's concrete and immediate message of promising to take care of neighborhood details such as cleaning up streets appealed to voters more than discussion of broader issues such as the benefits of long-range planning.

Mark Mosher of Mayor Brown's favorite soft-money consulting firm, Barnes, Mosher and Whitehurst, made sure the roughly $42,000 raised in soft money and funneled through the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club on Dufty's behalf was spent wisely. Dufty also got $55,000 in soft dollars from the state Democratic Party, about $15,000 from the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, and $2,500 from the Building Owners and Managers Association – totaling $114,500. Of that, the $17,292 the Alice B. Toklas Club forked over to get voters to mail in early absentee ballots paid off handsomely.

"There's no question their vote-by-mail program was better than ours," Sup. Chris Daly explained.

Canvassers working the district for Hansen repeated over and over again the fact that their candidate had opposed the condo-conversion measure, Proposition R, and that Dufty was the candidate of the landlords. That message hit home.

But much of the soft money spent on Hansen's behalf went to hammering one point over and over again: Bevan Dufty is Mayor Willie Brown's guy.

"It's a compelling message, and it [worked] with Prop. D [sharing appointments to the San Francisco Planning Commission and Board of Appeals between the mayor and supervisors passed in March 2002], the Adachi campaign, and Daly," Wade Crowfoot, DCCC treasurer and a Hansen backer, said. "But this was a learning experience. If a candidate runs a good campaign and is credibly attached to the neighborhood, voters aren't going to go for [bashing Brown]."

Binder suggested that for many voters, Brown is no longer a defining issue. "They've said, 'OK, we're over that. We've put controls on Willie Brown, so let's move on.' "

Another factor, some said, was Dufty's ability to portray himself as someone who listened. "The left in this town is very good at telling voters what we think, and even telling them what they should think," said one campaign insider, who asked not to be named. "Dufty went around and asked the voters to tell him what they thought, and he acted like he really cared."

But perhaps the most critical factor was Dufty's support for Proposition N – the nasty antihomeless measure that passed in November – and his ability to convince voters that Hansen would do nothing to solve the homelessness problem. Sup. Gavin Newsom, the author of Prop. N, recorded a voice message for Dufty saying that Hansen wouldn't implement the measure. "What Bevan ran on, other than the neighborhood service point, was Prop. N," Milk Club President Debra Walker said. "It motivated a lot of people, unfortunately."

On to 2003

Of course, the major topic on every political activist's mind is whether Hansen's loss – which marks the second election in a row in which candidates backed by Sup. Tom Ammiano were defeated and candidates backed by Newsom won – has any real impact on the 2003 mayoral race. Binder, who has worked for both Newsom and Ammiano, says it's hard to say.

"My guess is, if I did a poll today, the numbers for Newsom and Ammiano will not have changed," he said. "However, I do think it has affected activists' confidence [in Ammiano]."

On a larger level, progressives say that the independent board majority – now more narrow – needs to concentrate on dealing with major issues affecting the city.

"We have to demonstrate that the left can govern," an insider told us.

Indeed, over the last two years under the Ammiano presidency, the board has not succeeded in successfully tackling difficult issues such as homelessness and the budget crunch. And that has to change.

"[Tuesday's results] were informative for us in terms of how we need to act in the next year," Daly said. "It's a big loss for us. There's no denying that. But hopefully the bright side is that this will make us refocus our energy on organizing and defining the issues, such as the need to protect renters, and pushing the political agenda. When downtown is doing that, we're on our heels and we lose. And when we're doing it, we're on our toes and we win."

With his extensive experience getting services out of city hall, Dufty may very well be effective at dealing with neighborhood problems. But progressives are worried about how he will come down on key citywide issues affecting the poor. The money behind Dufty strongly suggests he will be much more sympathetic to property owners and developers than Hansen would have been. He received at least $8,200 in soft dollars from real estate and development interests – and at least $3,600 in hard money. A newsletter from the San Francisco Board of Realtors strongly urges voting for Dufty, calling Hansen an "ultraliberal." The letter warns, "Realtors who are concerned about the composition of the next Board of Supervisors are out supporting Bevan Dufty."

In addition, Dufty's support came from city employees, the San Francisco Police Department, and those individuals who have traditionally funded machine candidates, such as Wells Fargo heir Warren Hellman and city hall lobbyist Marcia Smolens. Indeed, at least $25,000 in soft money came from representatives of machine and downtown interests. For example, Kimiko Burton contributed $500 to Dufty's soft-money campaign, and the mayor threw in $500. So don't expect Dufty to be as chilly to lobbyists as many members of the current board. And also expect, on some key close votes, for Dufty to help make it possible for Brown's vetoes to hold. (It takes 8 of the 11 supervisors to override a mayoral veto.)

"On the big policy issues, I'm hoping he'll surprise us," Sup. Jake McGoldrick said. "I'm hoping he'll join in on progressives approaches to dealing with issues affecting the poor."

Dufty said that his position on issues will not necessarily jibe with the will of campaign contributors. "For $100, you don't buy me," he said."

But a matter of concern to tenants did come up for a vote at Dufty's first board meeting on Dec. 16. Ammiano asked his colleagues to support a settlement between landlords and renters over the controversial matter of how much of the cost of general obligation bonds and capital improvements property owners may pass on to their tenants. Some small-property owners, including several who contributed to Dufty's campaign, don't like the deal – and Dufty was the lone vote against it.