It's a Recount: San Francisco Mayoral Election Ends in 'Almost Dead Tie'
The San Francisco Department of Elections finally have released the final tallies of the mayoral run-off election and with a result of 50.01% to 49.99%, it's still too close to call. Electoral winner, Democratic candidate Gavin Newsom received 134,250 while his competitor Green Party candidate Matt Gonzalez received 134,196. Though the final results of the run-off election have been show Newsom as the winner by 0.2%, or fifty-four votes, the narrow margin is enough for a recount, which the Gonzalez camp have confirmed they will pursue. Until the results of the recount are released in the coming days, both sides will have to wait on the celebrations and the concessions.
In San Francisco, a city with a reputation for liberal politics, the city has seen the tensest and most stark election in its modern history as the city's Democratic status quo has finally faced a credible threat. In the face of a refreshed anti-war movement and exhaustion from "the Brown machine" and "the blatant gentrification that occurred during the Boom economy," a restless but organized anti-establishment spirit has flourished, who conveniently found their talisman in the city councillor Matt Gonzalez. Before getting into San Francisco politics, he was an civil rights attorney and activist. Known to be distinctively honest and also highly liberal, as displayed by his support for Nader in 2000, he is the perfect figurehead for the new and potent Bay Area 'anti-politics' movement.
His competitor, Gavin Newsom, during the course of the election as been widely regarded as the establishment candidate. In fact, party sources on the day of the election were quoted as hoping that minor Republican support could squeeze them past the 50% line. A Democrat, he has been pigeonholed by as the hard left as "a successor to the Brown's patronage machine." A businessman originally, he began his career in the public sector as an appointee to the city's Parking and Traffic Commission. The year after he became a member on the Board of Supervisors.
The exiting long-time San Francisco mayor, Willie Brown, who appointed Newsom originally in 1996, has carried with him a shady reputation. In late April and early May of 2001, the San Francisco Chronicle released an extensive report about favoritism in appointments and contracting decisions. Supporters of Gonzalez have been keen to hang this over Newsom's head. However, some believed this to have backfired -- accusations of racism started to pick up steam in Democratic political circles and Black neighborhoods, with Willie Brown himself coming out against the attacks against him.
But the Gonzalez campaign has fought hard against obtaining a reputation as a vote of the disaffected white, middle class liberal that the Democratic Party has attempted to build. In the later parts of the campaign, Gonzalez established a 'listening tour', visiting neighborhoods as such the Tenderloin, Hunter's Point, Bayview, and the Mission District extensively -- all known as working class and non-white neighborhoods. A campaign spokesperson even called press in for a conference clarifying the campaign's positions on racial issues. During which she admitted some Gonzalez supporters abhor an attitude that "class is more important or central or causal than race" an tendency that she slammed as "irresponsible and racist".
The election has picked up traction in national news outlets, particularly FOX News. "This is the danger of leftism, they're slaves to the PC police. Absolutely everything is racist! Not giving away free taxpayer money is racist!," Sean Hannity proclaimed while commenting on Gonzalez's comments on the day, having had called Newsom's Care Not Cash which was passed through referendum a year earlier "a weak policy" that "will not stop the economic racism and homophobia that creates and sustains so much of our homelessness problem."
With an above average voter participation rate, some local commenters have praised Gonzalez's runoff election effort. "Some mistakenly wrote him off as an indulgence of the city's counterculture, but he's done the best that any anti-establishmentarian has at establishing a coalition that could bring down the status quo, he's now net positive fifty-five votes away in a recount from changing the course of San Franciscan history and redefining what's possible in local politics. As Gonzalez himself said after the recount announcement:
'Now all we can do is wait a little bit longer.'"