Why Gonzalez didn't runBy Tim Redmond
So it looks as if there won't be much of a mayor's race this fall after all. I know that Matt Gonzalez took a hard look at it; he met with a good campaign consultant, talked to possible supporters and donors, took a poll ... and decided that he wasn't going to win.
Gonzalez didn't want to run a symbolic campaign. He didn't want to do what Tom Ammiano did in 1999 -- galvanize the left, build a movement, and fall short of dethroning a powerful incumbent. Gonzalez felt like he did that once, and if he was going to enter the race, he wanted to know there was a real chance of victory.
But Gonzalez has been out of politics for a couple of years, and has dropped a bit off the political radar. His "maybe-I-will-maybe-I-won't" game over the past six months has demoralized a lot of possible supporters. And he couldn't come up with a plan to crack Gavin Newsom's teflon: The early numbers had him losing, 60-20.
It's too bad. I still think that if Gonzalez had started early, say back in January, we might have had a real race. I understand his frustration: No matter how badly Newsom screws up -- Muni's a mess, the murder rate is soaring, he slept with a staffer who was married to his good friend -- the mayor remains almost impossibly popular.
That, I think, could change with a real candidate challenging him -- but it won't be Matt Gonzalez. So it's time to start thinking about the Board of Supervisors in 2008.
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Comments (4)
Tim, I don't know who your source was, but the 60-20 numbers you posted are way off, I have seen the numbers. Ask your source where he got the numbers from.
Posted by David Sloane | July 31, 2007 12:37 PM
While many of this town's progressives think their overheated rhetoric gives them some type of moral imperative, Matt Gonzalez may think just the opposite.
Perhaps Matt reasons that mounting a multi-million dollar mayoral campaign wouldn't be worth it, because the campaign would inevitably degenerate into nothing but a series of sleazy cheapshots at the mayor. Try to imagine Matt having to defend the outbursts of fellow progressives like Chris Daly.
Matt's campaign would be a losing effort that the city's progressives would use only as bitchfest about a mayor with whom they don't actually have any substantive grievances (Muni? Crime? Sex? you've got to be kidding)
It's perfectly reasonable that Matt shouldn't want to run for mayor because frankly this city's bitchy, adolescent progressives are simply not worthy of him.
Posted by jeff | July 31, 2007 05:48 PM
Astute observation of the current situation, Jeff. It didn't have to be this way. The Guardian went big on Alioto last time; where was the support for Gonzalez this time? Not a mention from the flagship media of the progressive movement during this last crucial month when many knew Gonzalez was doing the necessary and serious research to see if and how Newsom could be beaten.
Posted by Jim Dorenkott | July 31, 2007 07:39 PM
I have to tend to agree with Redmond's assessment - had a candidacy been announced earlier in the year, even as late as April or May, the support may have built over time -- name recognition would have been re-established with newer voters, people who were frustrated by Newsom's missteps would have had a place to go with those frustrations, rather than assuming they would just have to live with it for another four years.
Posted by bae | August 4, 2007 04:14 PM