Interesting, the politics of the media and the mayor’s race. While the Chron is typically the downtown/conservative paper, and some of those same folks are pushing Mayor Ed Lee to run for another term, the Chron’s big editorial July 17th made the case against Run Ed Run. Why? Well, mostly because the mayor promised:
But there is an even more important reason Ed Lee should not run: He said he would not. … He also said he took the job with a “clear, basic understanding” that he would run the city for the final year of Gavin Newsom’s term with “no distractions.”
The Chron clearly likes Ed Lee, and projects that as a candidate, he would lose the good will he’s created as mayor:
One of the reasons the atmosphere at City Hall this year has been so calm – and the results so impressive – it that the self-effacing occupant of Room 200 has gone out of his way to be collaborative, and the good feeling has been reciprocated.
That dynamic would change in an instant if Lee joined nine very ambitious politicians in the race for mayor. He would be widely regarded as the front-runner and thus would become the No. 1 target of the other nine.
His opponents would include two key members of the Board of Supervisors: President David Chiu and progressive stalwart John Avalos. The chances of anything meaningful emerging out of City Hall for the remainder of the year would plummet.
I’m not sure that’s true, not with ranked-choice voting. Nobody would want to anger Lee or his supporters; they’d all be going for the Number Two votes. (All except Leland Yee. Lee’s biggest backers in Chinatown despise Yee; it would be hard to keep that one civil.) And I don’t think Lee’s personality would suddenly change the minute he entered the race.
It would mean that David Chiu and Dennis Herrera would start to drop in the polls, since at least some of their core supporters would move to Lee. The race would be defined (with some reason) at Yee v. Lee.
But I don’t think it’s going to happen. As long as the mayoral candidates agree to let Lee have his job back (and Yee would be crazy not to make that promise — the thought of Mayor Yee AND Lee having no job might be the kicker that would push Lee into the race), I think the caretaker mayor would be just as happy to bow out. And the more times he says he won’t do it, and the more times players like the Chron urge him not to (and make it about civility and honoring his word) the harder it will be to jump in at the last minute.
(Before all the trolls attack me: I’m not telling Lee not to run. I’ve said all along: I hated the idea of a “caretaker” mayor, and I think Lee has been a great improvement over Gavin Newsom. I just think if he wants to run, he shouldn’t wait until the last minute. And the last minute is getting closer all the time.)