The San Francisco mayor’s race is taking a new twist: Sup. John Avalos — one of the best, most consistent and productive progressives on the board — is looking at running.
Avalos told me he wasn’t interested in the interim mayor job and “this was never on my mind when I ran for supervisor.” But the process of selecting an interim mayor and the politics of Sup. David Chiu’s re-election as board president left him deeply disturbed. “I was blown away by how the process was perverted into a backroom deal based on personal ambition,” he said. “The side of the progressive movement that’s about good government and transparency was lost.”
So he’s been meeting with potential supporters and discussing what an Avalos for Mayor campaign would look like.
Although he’s only been in office two years, Avaos has been Budget Committee chair and has a solid and impressive legislative record (the local hire law being his most recent accomplishment). He has as much experience as Matt Gonzalez did when he ran for mayor (and, obvioulsy, as much experience as Chiu, who is also running.)
He makes the case that the progressive movement is better off in the long term if there’s a strong progressive in the race: “If we don’t have someone running, we won’t do as well in district elections next time,” he said, noting that the progressive victories in 2000 and 2004 were helped by the energy generated by Tom Ammiano’s mayoral campaign in 1999 and the Gonzalez campaign in 2003.
Not everyone in progresive poltics agrees with that analysis; I’ve heard from a number of community leaders who question whether what everyone agrees would be a longshot mayoral campaign is the best use if prorogressive resources right now.
But Avalos, to his immense credit, isn’t going to do this on his own. “I don’t believe in just announcing one day,” he told me. “I’m going to talk to people, and if there’s enough support for me, fine, and if there isn’t, I won’t run.”
That’s a sharp contrast to Chris Daly, who has pretty much announced that if no other progressive runs, he will. And with all due respect to the former District 6 supervisor — who has done a tremendous amount of good for the city, and I mean that with all sincerity — Daly’s not the right person to carry the progressive standard in the November mayor’s race.