How to beat Newsom

THE WAY A lot of the pundits in town are talking, the San Francisco mayor's race is already over. Sup. Gavin Newsom is so far ahead in the polls, has so much money, and has so much of a political bump from his attacks on the homeless that the rest of the candidates might as well pack it in and get ready for the era of Mayor Newsom.

But as Savannah Blackwell reports on page 16, there's another side to the story. The polls show a clear majority of the voters prefer another candidate to Newsom – and the 35-year-old restaurant owner and darling of high society is vulnerable on a lot of critical issues.

Newsom would like to be seen as a centrist, a moderate who isn't on either side of the machine-versus-neighborhoods political wars that have defined local politics in the past few years. But even a cursory look at Newsom's record and his positions on issues shows he's the heir to Mayor Willie Brown's legacy, a pro-downtown, pro-landlord, pro-big business politician who would continue the reign of corruption that has so badly damaged San Francisco during Brown's tenure. He's been against every major piece of tenant legislation, against public power, against controls on overdevelopment, against fair wages for working people, against environmental preservation laws – against most of what the mainstream of San Francisco supports.

The key to defeating Newsom: The progressive candidates need to aggressively challenge him on the issues – and not fight with each other. If ranked-choice voting is in place – and the two leading liberal candidates, Sup. Tom Ammiano and Angela Alioto, need to be working overtime to make sure it is – then it's in the interests of the Alioto and Ammiano camps to work together on key ballot-measure campaigns, on voter-turnout efforts, and mostly on explaining to the voters that Newsom the centrist is a dangerous fraud.

And Ammiano and Alioto have to be willing to present a clear alternative. It will do them no good to drift toward the center and show how similar they are to Newsom; they need to expose him as the radical friend of the rich that he is, and show that they are very different.

Newsom can be, and must be, defeated. The future of San Francisco is on the line.