Progressive power play for the DCCC
The word from the San Francisco Elections Office is that all hell has broken loose as the city's top progressive political leaders file to run for the Democratic County Central Committee in a bold and surprising move to seize control of the political body from moderates like Mayor Gavin Newsom, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein. And the word is that Team Newsom was caught flat-footed, able to get only a couple administration loyalists -- Mike Farrah and Catherine Dodd -- to file before today's 5 p.m. deadline.
But the lineup on the left is a who's who list of top progressives: supervisors Chris Daly, Jake McGoldrick and Aaron Peskin, Public Defender Jeff Adachi, school board members Eric Mar and Kim-Shree Maufis, likely supervisorial candidates Debra Walker and Eric Quesada, mayoral runner-up Quintin Mecke, and McGoldrick's son Jamie. If elected, they would join incumbent progressives such as Robert Haaland, Michael Goldstein, and Rafael Mandelman.
"I think what you'll see is a more progressive central committee," said Bill Barnes, chief of staff for Assembly member Fiona Ma and a progressive member of the DCCC who is also running for reelection.
Control of the DCCC would allow local progressives, most of whom have endorsed Barack Obama for president, to take advantage of the opportunity to push a more innovative political agenda and try to pressure the party to move to the left.
They are also likely to use a coordinated campaign this year to present progressive policy options to San Franciscans just as Newsom is working to sell a Lennar-sponsored development proposal on the June ballot and using a power grab on city committees to try to take control of the public agenda.
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Comments (10)
Gavin Newsom and Nancy Pelosi are moderates? God, I have got to move to San Francisco!
Posted by Patrick | March 7, 2008 05:07 PM
A pending list of candidates for the Democratic County Central Committee is now available on the Department of Elections website.
http://www.sfgov.org/site/uploadedfiles/elections/candidates/rptPendingQualifiedCandidateList.pdf
Jeff Adachi, Kim-Shree Maufas, Quintin and Jamie are not running. However, there are very strong progressive candidates in both Assembly Districts.
As we've witnessed the people-powered politics in the Democratic Party this year, it is certainly time to bring progressive energy into San Francisco's Democratic Party.
I'm sure that corporate forces will do everything they can to keep progressives out of the Democratic Party. We are going to need to stick together in a unified progressive slate.
Posted by Chris Daly | March 7, 2008 09:39 PM
All I have to say is that I am lucky I live in the 12th AD. The 13th AD DCCC race is going to be a slugfest in comparison!
Posted by Emily Drennen | March 8, 2008 02:23 AM
Steve,
Gavin Newsom, Nancy Pelosi, and Dianne Feinstein are conservatives, not moderates. Don't let them frame the debate in such a way and don't grant them any unearned legitimacy -- it just allows them cover to become even more conservative. Just because they aren't Republicans doesn't mean they can't be conservative.
Posted by expatriate | March 8, 2008 03:34 AM
"Gavin Newsom, Nancy Pelosi, and Dianne Feinstein are conservatives, not moderates"
I'm laughing at you expatriate. That is patently the most ridiculous and stupid comment I've ever seen. You are clearly showing your lack of worldliness and perspective if you think these three are conservative.
Talk about trying to "frame" the debate. Good luck with that. Only dumbasses can't see through your misuse of terms.
Posted by SFMod | March 8, 2008 01:33 PM
In San Francisco, few politicians are able to be socially conservative or moderate.
Economically, however, many San Francisco Democrats are moderate to as wed to free market dogma as any mainstream Republican.
I'm not seeing, however, a demonstrated track record amongst some who are seeking DCCC seats of economic independence from the downtown corporate structure as relates to rezoning for massive new amounts of luxury condos, housing we don't need and that won't pay for itself but will enrich developers and land speculators at the expense of MUNI.
-marc
Posted by marc | March 9, 2008 11:25 AM
Dianne Feinstein is a classic example of how people can misunderstand SF politics. Sure, she's pro-choice and (moderately, cautiously) okay on queer issues (but not gay marriage). But on economic issues, she's very much a conservative. Her economic policies would fit quite well in the mainstream of the Republican Party. As mayor of SF, she consistently opposed taxes on the wealthy (in fact, she opposed most progressive taxes), opposed even reasonable regulations on developers and pretty much took the position that any form of real-estate development was good because it created jobs.
Same thing with Pelosi, whose husband is a real-estate developer. She's never opposed overdevelopment in this town, and has never supported any move to shift the tax burden to the rich. Neither has Newsom.
Oh, and Pelosi and Feinstein both initially backed the war.
In San Francisco, most politicians believe they have to be Democrats to get elected. If Feinstein lived in a Republican city, she'd be a Republican.
Posted by Tim Redmond | March 10, 2008 11:36 AM
You're right about Feinstein, Tim, but not Nancy Pelosi. In 2002, when she was House Minority Whip, she publicly broke with Minority Leader Dick Gephardt to oppose the Iraq War Resolution -- managing to get a majority of the Democratic Caucus to break with their party leader.
Pelosi's not perfect, and I wouldn't go so far as to say she's a San Francisco progressive. But putting her in the same category as Dianne Feinstein is simply unfair.
Posted by Paul Hogarth | March 10, 2008 01:33 PM
Pelosi's not as bad ad Feinstein, I agree. But she has never been with us on local economic issues, not once in the entire time she's been in Congress.
Posted by tim redmond | March 10, 2008 07:25 PM
To view Nancy Pelosi's (incomplete) voting record, go to this website and "Congressional Record:"
http://pelosiwatch.us/
Nancy Pelosi voted against the October 2002 resolution to authorize the president to go to war against Iraq, but she has voted for every war appropriation since then except for one late this past spring or early summer. That is contrast to her many of her Bay Area colleagues, especially Barbara Lee, Pete Stark, and Lynn Woolsey. Pelosi also voted for the first Patriot Act.
Posted by Sue | March 10, 2008 08:32 PM