A ray of hope in San Francisco

By Rayn Random

It wasn't the "Big One," but there was some perceptible shaking.

C.W. Nevius, a long time, conservative, mostly political, writer for the San Francisco Chronicle had some interesting comments and observations in his November 18 column regarding some of the local election results. Nevius said that:

"[Aaron] Peskin and his far-left leaders of the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee are still shaking off the ice water from the dunking they took at the ballot box. Formerly the organization of write-down-the-endorsements-and-start-planning-the-victory-party (40 out of 43 endorsement wins for supervisor since 1990), the Peskin-led DCCC took a 0-4 skunking on supervisors."

Nevius quotes Enrique Pearce, who directed a winner in the 6th district, "I think it exposed the DCCC as a bit of a paper tiger. It's a self-congratulatory body full of insiders, and I think they were out of touch in this case." When Nevius asked Mark Farrell, a surprise winner in the 2nd district, if he'd gotten a congratulatory call from Peskin, Farrell joked, "Still waiting on that one."

Nevius believes that "Farrell's victory undercuts the idea that the far left is the voice of everyday San Franciscans." And, Farrell said, "I think as it stands today, the DCCC has moved so far left that it is not emblematic of the Democratic Party I grew up with. When I talked to people about their positions, to a person they said, ‘No way.'"

Nothing registered on the Richter Scale, but it sounds as though a hairline crack may have appeared in the Democrat's political ground under San Francisco.