gavin newsom is our mayor. i thought i lived in a city that was progressive enough to recognize an old money republican when he arrived on a gilded sled carrying a democratic ticket, but i must have thought wrong. it's a sad day.
i was in a taxi cab a few nights ago and the driver started talking about politics. now, usually, this is the point in the cab ride when i start professing the opposite of whatever the cab driver is saying (just to get him riled up). but this cabbie said something that stuck with me. he said "if newsom wins, it won't be because the majority of the people in this city want him to be mayor. if he wins, it will be because the young people in the city didn't vote." and that is exactly what happened.
gonzalez lost by some 10,000 votes. the total electorate for this election was made up of around 230,000 people. considering that there are 777,000 people in san francisco, and considering that a little over a third of those people don't have the right to vote for whatever reason, then you're looking at a possible electorate of 400,000 or 500,000 voters. that means that gonzalez had more than enough support to win last night. please correct me if i'm wrong.
it also makes me upset that the rest of the country is looking at this election as a race between democrats and greens. that's not the case at all. gavin newsom is certainly not a democrat — and if you don't believe me, ask chris matthews or rush limbaugh. or, better yet, just check out the guy's voting record. the whole democrat image is yet another tactic that the newsom campaign used to get the guy elected. it's very tricky and very effective PR that works time and time again. it's hard to say no to a democratic candidate who has the endorsement of gore, clinton, both senators from california, and willie brown. over 100,000 people fell for it. i'd be interested to know how many people voted for gavin simply because it said "democrat" next to his name on the ballot. it wasn't a race between dems and greens, it was a race between a progressive and a conservative.
gonzalez himself expressed some of those reservations in his speech last night. we had enough support to win. that really burns. something else he said was that people voted for the type of society they would like to see in san francisco. if that's true, i guess that gavin has his work cut out for him. half of this city will be at war with him on every issue for the next four years. so... good luck.
yesterday wasn't a bad day at all until the results came in. i was in the recording studio laying down guitar tracks with tracy and aaron, our engineer, while it poured rain outside. the fastpass four-song EP is coming along swimmingly. the songs are tight, everything really kicks in all the right places, and a couple of the songs are even downright psychedelic in a few spots. i know, strange. but psychedelic hard rock is good. trust me.
Posted by snackfight at December 10, 2003 08:31 AM