Is San Francisco moving to the right?

[marmar]

from the San Francisco Bay Guardian:



The Bay Citizen/New York Times thinks so. The headline on the story -- "more conservative is the new normal" -- says it all. Matt Smith (formerly of our price-fizing rival SF Weekly) and Gerry Shih say the Nov. 8 election signals a turn to the right for this famously liberal city:

But Tuesday’s election signaled a palpable shift: In addition to Lee, a pro-business moderate, voters overwhelmingly picked George Gascón, the law-and-order former police chief — and former Republican — as district attorney.

“To whoever thinks San Francisco is loopy and left-wing, this election basically said, ‘No, it’s really not,’” said David Latterman, associate director of the Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good at the University of San Francisco. “We just elected an ex-Republican, pro-death penalty district attorney by a landslide. Just ponder that.”

Well: It's interesting that they call Lee a "pro-business moderate," which is probably accurate but differs from how Lee's more progressive supporters see the new mayor. But while they talk about Gascon, they conveniently leave out the fact that San Francisco has elected the first solid progressive to a citywide office in a long, long time. Ross Mirkarimi -- a former Green Party member and without a doubt one of the most left-leaning supervisors -- won a tight, contested race for sheriff running honestly as a progressive. I think you have to go back to 1987, when Art Agnos ran for mayor as the candidate of the left, to find another example of a progressive champion winning all across town.

.....(snip).....

Wade Randlett is not my favorite person in local politics, but the point he makes is valid -- and it's not happening by accident. Virtually all of the new housing that's been built in San Francisco in the past decade has been aimed at wealthy people, a lot of them young tech types who commute from the city to Silicon Valley. The other people moving into new housing are empty-nest retirees from places like Marin County. If you walk through the new condo buildings in Soma, the residents are mostly white, with a few Asians; there are almost no African Americans, very few families and essentially zero working-class people. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2011/11/11/sf-moving-right

[NYC_SKP]

1. I knew it was over the moment they banned Nude Dining. (warning, graphic leftist nude diner pics)

http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/2011/09/supervisors-proposal-leaves-san-franciscos-nudists-cold

:P

:patriot:

[Luminous Animal]

5. Those men might be nude but they are no leftists.

[inna]

2. gotta love the comments section. :) good old sfbg.

[arcane1]

3. Sadly, the rightward shift has gone on too long, everywhere.

Even here in San Francisco, you can have 14 candidates to choose from, none of which are republican, bet there are conservatives. If we were in any country south of the border, they would be called "neoliberals". I have no idea where Lee's votes came from. Nobody I knew had any desire to vote for him, and most had an active desire to NOT vote for him. But there ya go. There is a lot of money in this tiny town.

I wasn't too crazy about George Gascón's win either.

When it was time to elect a new supervisor for district 6, I was more interested than in any election of my lifetime. It seemed like Kim's supporters came out of nowhere, a week before the vote, and flooded the streets with signs. Prior to that week, she was unknown. The 2011 SF election results were not pleasing to me, but they also motivated me to get more involved.

But you wanna know why I love this town? Because my #1 choice for D6 supervisor was the conservative candidate. You know, the post-op transexual who used to run a sex-toy business :)

[lonestarnot]

4. LOL