With the Examiner reporting that Public Defender Jeff Adachi this morning unexpectedly pulled papers to run for mayor, the wide-open race – now with 11 top-tier candidates who are either office-holders or strong fundraisers – just got a bit more interesting and will probably get a lot more nasty.
While Mayor Ed Lee has the advantage of incumbency and support from powerful players like former Mayor Willie Brown and Chinatown fixer Rose Pak, he also has the biggest target on his back and decades of patronage politics dirt to be dug up on him, a process that has already begun and will get far worse in the coming months.
Previously, Leland Yee and his history as a political weather vane had been the biggest target for op-shop research and popular derision, but Adachi might now displace him as the second-biggest target of political ire after his back-to-back campaigns of pushing pension reform proposals that didn’t have buy-in from labor.
The only certain thing about this year’s mayor’s race, which has so far been marked by downright boring levels of civility, is that it is likely to turn into slugfest, ranked-choice voting be damned. Sure, Lee’s camp will labor mightily to sell its unofficial “it’s all about civility” motto, but perhaps they should have thought about that before naming Gavin Newsom’s prickly and belittling former press secretary, Tony Winnicker, as its spokesperson.
So buckle up, everyone, with today’s deadline for filing to run passing by, it’s game on!