Blame and Mayoral Politics in San Francisco
A key dimension of the mayoral campaign is who voters blame for the problems facing the city.
This year voters in San Francisco will vote for both President of the US and Mayor of their city. The national data as well as polling on San Francisco make it very clear that voters in both places are unhappy about the state of the country or city. In this context, a central question in both elections is who deserves the blame.
At the national level we have had divided government for the last two years and de facto divided government, due to the antics of Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, during the first two years of the Biden administration as well. Accordingly, as we head towards November, both Democrats and Republicans can claim that the problem is the other party.
If you are a Biden supporter and think things are going poorly, then the answer is to reelect Biden and hope both houses of Congress end up in Democratic hands. Similarly, Republicans want to flip the Senate and the White House while keeping the House of Representatives in Republican hands.
In San Francisco the situation is a little different because it is about ideology and incumbency rather than simply party. Some voters buy into very well-funded but nonetheless misleading narrative that claims that it is the left, sometimes described as the far left, that is responsible for everything that is wrong in San Francisco. Others believe that the problem is that political forces backed by big money and corporate interests, generally in the odd vernacular of San Francisco known as moderates, have too much power.
If you believe the former argument then electing London Breed, Mark Farrell or Daniel Lurie are your options in the mayor’s race, while ensuring that progressive Supervisors like Connie Chan and Dean Preston are defeated is an additional priority.
On the other hand, if you believe that continuing to turn the city over to moneyed corporate interests is not really in the best interest of San Francisco, then you would want to re-elect Chan and Preston and make sure that Aaron Peskin, the only major mayoral candidate who is not all but in the pockets of the big moneyed interests, wins that election.
In every election, each candidate or party argues that they have the answers and that the other party or candidate has made a mess of things. In San Francisco that argument will take place as well. Over the next months we will hear Breed, Farrell and Lurie continue to posit that the answer to crime is essentially to empower the police and pull back any civilian oversight of them, and that the answer to the affordability crisis is, with some variations between the candidates, to let speculators build as much housing as they want regardless of its impact on resources, affordability, displacement or neighborhoods.
An extensive discussion about the issues facing San Francisco is important, but the core question that will not go away is who to blame. This is one reason why Breed’s road to reelection, given the current field, while not impossible is a very difficult one. She has simply been in office too long to plausibly dodge any blame for the problems facing San Francisco today. Not only has Breed been Mayor for what will soon be six years, but the District Attorney, City Attorney, most city commissioners and one member of the Board of Supervisors are her appointees.
While one can argue that Breed has made some good and bad decisions as mayor, it is much tougher to argue that she bears no responsibility for the current state of the city, particulalry given how much power the Mayor of San Francisco has relative to the legislature.
Lurie and Farrell are both in a slightly different positions than Breed with regards to this question of blame. Because Lurie has never worked in city government, he can blame everybody else for San Francisco’s problems. Similarly, Farrell has not held elected office in six years so can also use that tactic. However, a closer look at those assertions reveal some major flaws.
Lurie and Farrell would both undoubtedly bring personalities and management styles to City Hall that are different from that of the incumbent, but their bigger picture approach to policy making and governance would be one of continuity not change with regards to the Breed administration.
Peskin is different. He has been in and out of city government and the Board of Supervisors for pretty much all of this century, so cannot claim outsider status. However, although the narrative that Peskin is the leader of the progressive movement that has destroyed San Francisco is backed by extremely ample resources and gets a fair amount of traction in more conservative quarters, it falls short when confronted with the reality of how power is distributed in San Francisco politics.
While some voters will have honest differences with Peskin regarding policies, to suggest that he is responsible for the problems facing San Francisco is a triumph of ideological blindness, and the influence of millions of dollars from right-wing interests, over reality.
If you believe San Francisco has been run well over the last six years and you want the power structures, the people with influence in City Hall and the decisions made there to look essentially similar, albeit with some potential minor differences in substance and larger differences in style, then there are three major candidates from which you can choose.
On the other hand, if you think San Francisco needs some change and that maybe power should not rest so heavily in the hands of corporate, tech and real estate interests, then the choice is an easy and perhaps ironic one. It's Peskin-the guy who's been in government the longest.