Anyone following the Gavin Newsom vs. Matt Gonzalez mayoral runoff race here in San Francisco?
Gonzalez, a brilliant and progressive Green, is a great candidate. He combines the people power of Howard Dean (on a local level) with excellent policies and a track record of voting for the people, against corruption, tempered by high fiscal responsibility.
Newsome is more of the same that SF has now: corruption, cronyism, false solutions to gain votes that don't address real problems. Newsome is a Democrat, and for that reason alone DiFi, Nancy Pelosi, and Al Gore have endorsed him. In fact, Al Gore is coming to SF to campaign for Newsome, which has me thoroughly disappointed to the bone about Al Gore, just when I was starting to really appreciate him following the moveon.org speeches.
The single worst thing about all this is the terrible idea that we should support Newsome cause he's a Democrat. Hooey. (Especially in a local race like mayor), vote for the best candidate - and that's Gonzalez. I can understand arguments about spoiling national elections, but there's nothing to spoil: it's now a two-candidate runoff (which would have been decided already if our corrupt city hall had implemented voter mandated instant runoff voting). By sticking to ideological party lines in this situation, the Democrats are disgusting me as much as the Republicans who wear blinders.
Comments? Hey Kos, what's your take?
Cheers, happy thanskgiving!
(P.S. - If anyone from any of the presidential campaigns is reading this: if you're thinking about endorsing Matt Gonzalez, by all means, please do it, he's the change we need to see in this world. But please, please, whatever you do... don't endorse Gavin Newsome! Just don't! The fallout for your campaign would be not be pretty...)