Good grief. Chris Daly is in Europe? Willie Brown is in Cuba? Does this mean that the City Government is currently bereft of anyone capable of providing the high level of mischief that San Francisco expects – and requires – on a daily basis. This is not good planning. (UPDATE: Dec. 4. Both mischievians are today present and active in City Hall. Word is Da Mayor cancelled his visit to the other Castro). … The tediousness of these last days of this mopey mayoral race -- campaign staffs overwrought and as testy as over-tired three-year-olds; candidates laryngitic of voice and raspy of thought – is a compelling argument for instant run-offs in November.
Impressions of the candidates in the undecided mind – drawn from a couple dozen conversations yesterday: … Newsom suffers from being the Anointed One, though his sheer stick-to-it-ivness suggests to voters that he does seem to have more spunk than people allow him. … Gonzalez is the Insurgent, but the timidity of his campaign makes people wonder if he is not in fact an angle-player. Among San Franciscans who pride themselves on being showily pragmatic about politics as opposed to being showily ideological, neither candidate inspires fully. One question emerges in the latter days among undecideds about Gonzalez and Newsom: Who of them will be able to finesse City Hall? …
The partisans see this race either as the harbinger of Armageddon or of the birth of the New Jerusalem, but outside of the campaigns, the general affect is one of weariness and wariness. …
