Progressive Victory Party in SF
Sup. Chris Daly displays finger puppets that look like supervisors-elect John Avalos, Eric Mar, and David Chiu, mocking efforts during the campaign to assert that they would be nothing but his puppets.
By Steven T. Jones
San Francisco progressives celebrated the movement’s election night victories and set their sights on the mayor’s office during a party last night at The Independent sponsored by the San Francisco Democratic Party, San Francisco Labor Council, and the SF Tenants Union.
“The progressives in San Francisco still need the real prize and that’s Room 200,” said Aaron Peskin, who will continue in his role as chair of the local Democratic Party after leaving the Board of Supervisors at the end of the year.
He wasn’t the only one looking forward. John Avalos, who won the Dist. 11 seat on the Board of Supervisor, praised the unified movement’s ability to withstand withering attacks by downtown-funded groups and said, “Together, we can take the mayor’s race in 2011.”
The crowd included several politicians who may end up running for mayor, including Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, City Attorney Dennis Herrera, and state Senator-elect Mark Leno, all of whom spoke at the event and praised the coalescing of movements on the left.
“From the national level down to the local level, it was about coalitions,” Herrera said. “What we’re doing here is going to resonate across the country.”
Supervisor-elect Eric Mar, who won the most narrow victory of the new class and survived perhaps the biggest onslaught of negative campaigning, said he won’t forget the people responsible for his win: “I will be someone who will be a servant of the movements and accountable.”
One attendee that wasn’t basking in the victory was Alex Tourk, who consulted with groups including Coalition for Responsible Growth and 10K Strong that highlighted divisive wedge issues such as neighborhood schools, JROTC, and the community court program, which were meant to turn voters against the progressive supervisorial candidates.
“I did not attack one person, ever,” Tourk, who said he was invited to the event by Peskin, said when I asked him about his role in the attacks. “I educated voters about where candidates stood on the issues, period.”
Since leaving the Newsom Administration because the mayor slept with his wife, Tourk has done political consulting work for clients such as Gap founder (and wealthy Republican) Don Fisher, who is seeking to build a massive modern art museum at the Main Post of the Presidio (but running into strong opposition from preservationists, neighbors, and the Progressive Movement, which Fisher battles in just about every election cycle), and CRG, which Tourk said, “Came to me and said how do we talk to voters.”
Apparently – despite Tourk’s maintaining that his approach was positive and issues-based -- Tourk’s advice was to talk to them about matters that have nothing to do with the Board of Supervisors (such as JROTC, school choice, and the libertarian-led effort to decriminalize prostitution), but which try to vilify the progressive’s concerns about tolerance, diversity, and militarism.
“They threw what they had at us,” Sup. Chris Daly said, “and we stood up to it because we have a vision for a San Francisco that stands for all of us, the diversity of San Francisco.”
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Comments (5)
I think that one of the disappointing things about the progressive sweep was the tax on properties of $5 million and up. It started out at $2 million, which I think was reasonable (though I would have preferred $1 million), but then Aaron settled for $5 million. I agree that $2 million might have set off a blizzard of opposition from big-spending special interests and there would have been a decent chance that it wouldn't have passed, however, I think that $3 million would have been reasonable and easily passable, in spite of any opposition. I wonder how much more money that would have brought in?
Posted by expatriate | November 21, 2008 02:39 PM
I don't understand why the Guardian keeps reporting (falsely) that the effort to decriminalize prostitution was led by libertarians?
Posted by Slava | November 21, 2008 03:20 PM
Chris Daly said:
"we stood up to it because we have a vision for a San Francisco that stands for all of us, the diversity of San Francisco.”
Is this the same San Francisco that over the past 8 years has seen the African American population continue flee?
Or is it the same San Francisco that has less than 50% clear up rate for Murders?
Or perhaps it is the San Francisco where the minority of kids graduate Public Schools and go to a year collage?
You had a vision 8 years ago; at what point do you state the vision is not materialized?
Thanks for trying, however you failed and don't blame others, now please leave.
Posted by Chris P | November 21, 2008 04:25 PM
I believe that the vision held by San Francisco progressives, that government should serve the people rather than corporations, when evaluated against the ponzi scheme of downtown San Francisco, which perpetually egged us on to the Next Big Bubble, will prove quite favorable in retrospect, especially considering how out gunned economically and structurally progressives have been.
The main failing of the progressives is that we've forgotten that there once was a citywide majoritarian liberal/progressive/neighbor Moscone coalition and as such has no conception as to how to reconstruct that which the nonprofits sold us all out on. In short, residents have had our power pulled out from under us by ineffective paid advocates and it is time for us all to put people before corporations whether they be for or not for profit.
The last time I checked, it was the progressives who were standing up against Willie Brown and Gavin Newsom's housing policies which halved the African American community over the past decade, the progressives who have taken the SFUSD back from the Democratic conservatives who used the district as a piggy bank for their cronies and the neoconservative superintendent as a cudgel against an elected school board and the progressives who have led the fight for police reform that have been invariably opposed every step of the way by the moderate Democrat insiders.
-marc
Posted by Marc Salomon | November 21, 2008 05:49 PM
I note that Nevius is ramping up the Kronikle's Kampaign to put Herrera in Room 200 and continue Plumpjack Pretty Boy's exploitation of the gay marriage issue and his regressive corporate policies. Maybe this will convince Chris to do the right thing this time and do all he can to ensure that Ross becomes Board Prez, and ultimately Mayor, instead of facilitating another Campos conundrum.
Congratulations and respect to Mark Sanchez for running an honorable, principled and progressive campaign.
Si se puede - maybe next time.
Patrick Monk.RN. Noe Valley.
Posted by Patrick Monk. RN. | November 23, 2008 10:14 AM