Marching toward election day
Downtown money still talks, but progressives are already preparing to unite for the runoff. And compassion lessons from a Newsom volunteer

The machine lives Money is still speaking as loudly as ever in this election cycle, with the same rich downtown business interests using their usual committee vehicles and political consultants to support two ballot measures and the mayoral campaign of Gavin Newsom.

Donation disclosure statements reflecting finances through Oct. 18 show Proposition C – which would bolster city auditing functions – being supported by $381,032 in pledged spending by the Clean City Committee, which received most of its support from the SFSOS political action committee and its major donors: Charles Schwab, Schwab CEO David Pottruck, Gap founder Don Fisher, and financier Warren Hellman (who each gave $25,000).

The best-financed ballot measure is Newsom's anti-panhandling Proposition M, whose supportive Committee to Stop Aggressive Panhandling spent $546,771. The downtown-backed Committee on Jobs gave $230,000 in cash and $48,000 in services to the fight since July, using a $150,000 donation from Schwab, $25,000 from Texas-based Tarrant Partners LP, and $10,000 each from Providian Bancorp, American Industrial Partners, and Deloitte and Touche Services.

The Committee to Stop Aggressive Panhandling also got direct support from media conglomerate Clear Channel, whose billboard division donated $80,000 in free sign space and also happens to hold the city's news-rack contract. The other big direct donor was the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, with $30,000. Spending on Prop. M also helps Newsom's mayoral campaign, with which it is closely associated.

Raking in most of that spending in support of Props. C and M was the firm of Barnes Mosher Whitehurst Lauter and Partners, consultant for those two campaigns, as well as for Proposition A, the school bond measure.

Bankrupt Pacific Gas and Electric Co. also continues to be a player in local elections, kicking in $5,000 each toward the anti-panhandling measure and the Police Officers Association's effort to stop the reforms of Proposition H (supplementing the POA's $151,000 in donations).

Among the mayoral candidates, Newsom's final preelection campaign filing shows he has raised $2.4 million this year and still had $347,581 on hand. Most of his funding continues to come in the form of maximum $500 checks and with significant support from the hospitality, building, financial services, and real estate industries (see "King of Cash," 8/13/03).

Mayoral candidate Angela Alioto has finished second in the money race with $888,418 raised this year, although $600,000 of that is in loans from her personal bank account. She had $166,000 in the bank for the final push, but she has told the Bay Guardian she may dig deeper into her personal reserves if need be.

The brisk fundraising pace of late mayoral entry Matt Gonzalez slowed a bit to $35,926 in the latest reporting period, with Tom Ammiano just behind that at $31,781 – both just a single-digit percentage of Newsom's $393,159 for the period. (Steven T. Jones)

Ready for the runoff Harvey Milk Lesbian Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Democratic Club president and Ammiano supporter Robert Haaland was hanging out at the Dovre Club, a longtime political haunt in the Mission District, with some pals the other night – half Ammiano supporters, half Gonzalez supporters – when they came up with a great idea: why not schedule a fundraiser, now, for whichever progressive candidate makes it into a runoff with Newsom?

The idea: Alioto, Ammiano, Gonzalez, or even Susan Leal would be way better than Newsom, but none can win without the left coming together after the (sometimes bitter) general-election campaign. So the word is out: Anyone but Newsom.

The event is titled 'Little City, Big Tent' and will be held Nov. 9, 6 to 9 p.m., at the Ebb Tide Café, 1500 South Van Ness Ave. (at 26th Street). Cosponsors are Haaland, Sasha Magee, Lucy Runkel, Saskia Traill, and Alexis Gonzalez. For more information call (415) 665-3285. (Tim Redmond)

Did Gonzalez mailer backfire? A lot of progressives were fuming about a Gonzalez mailer that looks like an attack on Ammiano (see Campaign Watch, 10/22/03). But beyond the damage it may have done to progressive relations, it may have also hurt Gonzalez's campaign.

According to one reliable source who has seen a credible poll on the mayor's race, Gonzalez dropped several points immediately after that mailer hit the streets. "The only other factor that could have made such a difference was the televised debate," the source said. "And nobody won or lost that by five points." (Redmond)

What are they so afraid of? Over at Newsom campaign headquarters on Van Ness Avenue, a Bay Guardian reporter started talking to a Newsom volunteer coordinator, who tried to enter her name in a computer database. When she identified herself as a reporter, she was quickly shuttled over to the office of John Shanley, a press aide.

Shanley insisted the Newsom campaign began as a grassroots effort. He introduced the reporter to several volunteers, asking each of them if he were a millionaire, and touting the office motto "We all do everything from floors to windows," meaning that they all share in the grunt work.

Shanley conducted an office tour, pausing at the wall of campaign intern photos, seemingly boasting about the intelligence levels of the young interns, who graduated from such elite schools as Stanford, Harvard, UC Berkeley, and Columbia.

Although there were cubicles filled with what Shanley said were policy researchers, the one reference to policy the reporter heard in 25 minutes at the Newsom headquarters was from a volunteer who praised the candidate's Care Not Cash program.

The volunteer claimed that if his own brother was on the streets, he'd never concede to loaning him $400 – so the government shouldn't either. (Nikki Woodard)