- By Adam Shanks | Examiner staff writer |
- Sep 4, 2024 Updated Sep 5, 2024 (SFExaminer.com)
Mark Farrell’s opponents in the San Francisco mayoral race have suggested he’s in cahoots with Republicans — if not secretly one himself — for months now.
He has summarily dismissed or ignored such claims, until last week.
Responding to a new political action committee that is labeling him “MAGA Mark” — a reference to former President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan — a visibly peeved Farrell took to social media to combat the claim and defend his Democratic bona fides.
“I’m a born-and-raised San Francisco Democrat,” Farrell told his social-media followers, alleging that his opponents are “scared that I’m going to win.”
The new independent expenditure committee — which launched with a website at stopmagamarkfarrell.com — is steered by political consultant Jim Ross.
Farrell has noted Ross worked in the past as a consultant for former District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who was ousted by voters in 2022 despite attempts by his defenders to paint the recall effort as a Republican front.
“My opponents are turning to dirty politics and name calling because they know I am best positioned to deliver the change that San Francisco deserves,” Farrell told The Examiner in a statement. “As a born and raised, lifelong San Francisco Democrat, I am proud of my track record of advancing democratic priorities and values as Interim Mayor, Supervisor, and as an elected member of the San Francisco Democratic Central County Committee.”
Ross told The Examiner that he launched the site to establish a “clearinghouse” of information about Farrell. Ultimately, he argued, it’s not Farrell’s party registration that matters, but his views.
“A trend [in San Francisco] I want to call out — you’ll get these people, and they’ll say ‘I’m a Democrat, but … I gave money to Barack Obama, but …’” Ross said. “Then they espouse some right-wing or very conservative point of view.”
Farrell, who served two terms on the Board of Supervisors and then served as interim mayor for less than a year in 2018 following Mayor Ed Lee’s death, is now challenging Mayor London Breed in her bid for a second term.
Among the largest donors to Farrell’s ballot-measure committee in support of Proposition D is William Oberndorf, the primary financial supporter of the Boudin recall and a longtime contributor to Republican causes and candidates across the country.
Oberndorf — the primary financial force behind political group Neighbors for a Better SF — has to date has contributed $195,000 to the ballot-measure committee Farrell formed to support a proposed charter reform that would reduce the number of commissions in city government.
Farrell’s use of the ballot-measure committee to accept unlimited campaign contributions, and then share expenses with his mayor campaign, has provoked controversy.
The same committee received $500,000 from Linda and Thomas Coates, who are real-estate investors and longtime supporters of Farrell and Republican causes, as well as a major opponents of rent control in California.
Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, who is one of the five prominent candidates challenging Breed, argued that what’s important isn’t a single donor’s political persuasion, but where the bulk of a candidate’s support comes from.
In Farrell’s case, that support comes from the real-estate industry and Republicans, Peskin argued.
“That’s exactly who he’ll fight for [if elected], because that’s exactly who he is,” Peskin said.
Farrell’s campaign disputes such claims.
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“Over 90% of the contributions to my campaign are from Democrats and over 70% of my contributors are San Franciscans,” Farrell said. “We are gaining momentum everyday because voters know that I am the candidate who understands the challenges our city faces and has the experience and vision to deliver the changes voters are desperate for.”
It’s not just his ties to Oberndorf and other big-money donors that has Farrell’s opponents connecting dots — it’s his policies and positions.
They’ve compared his pledge to ask the National Guard to enforce San Francisco drug laws to former Trump’s call to deploy members of the military to American streets. Farrell also suggested that The City offer tax breaks to large corporations, including those that agree to bring their workers to downtown offices in person at least four days a week.
The former interim mayor also failed to immediately disavow comments made by the host of a campaign fundraiser, real-estate broker Larry Buck, who questioned the validity of vaccine and mask mandates and said San Francisco has “devolved into an international joke of lawlessness and wokeism, rewarding laziness and punishing those that work hard,” the website Politico reported.
Taking the stage after Buck, Farrell said “Sometimes I go through the nasty scenarios on where we are honestly. I think Larry did a great job of that … Larry laid it out pretty compellingly.”
Other campaigns have argued the company Farrell keeps shows who he’d represent in office.
“Whether it’s calling for armed National Guard troops in the Tenderloin, using dog whistles like ‘family values’ with voters, or endorsing the racist tropes of his supporters, there’s no question that Mark Farrell has numerous Trump-like tendencies,” said Joe Arellano, a spokesperson for Breed, in a statement.
Peskin acknowledged that basic issues such as women’s rights to reproductive choice and gay marriage aren’t in question in the San Francisco race. But he contended that Farrell’s rhetoric paralleled that of the Republican Party.
“That is definitely part of Farrell’s persona and that’s kind of the TogetherSF juggernaut, which is that your city is horrible, it is dangerous to go outside, we have to spend more money on law enforcement and less money on programs to uplift our communities,” Peskin said. “Yeah, that’s Trumpian.”
In his video, Farrell countered that his opponents are “scared that I’m gonna win and actually move San Francisco forward.”
There’s also the fact of who Farrell is — a white, male venture capitalist. Farrell contends that he’s being picked on because of his background.
“I think more Democrats should have business backgrounds,” Farrell said in the video.
Farrell was quick to point out that his first job out of college was for the Democratic presidential campaign of Bill Clinton and Al Gore, that his parents were both union leaders, and that he’s been a registered Democrat his entire adult life.
If nothing else, the new committee has put Farrell — who has built a campaign on relentlessly attacking Breed’s record — on the defensive.
“I actually thought he amplified the attack, amplified the site,” Ross said of Farrell’s video. “I think in a lot of ways he kind of proved the point. I thought it was kind of weak, his Democratic bona fides — I didn’t think those were particularly compelling.”
But Farrell and his supporters say they believe the furor over “Republican billionaires” won’t stick, just as it didn’t during the Boudin recall.
Farrell’s detractors counter that the 2022 recall was different. In Boudin’s case, he was fighting off a shadowy billionaire force. In this case, that billionaire force is now connected to a name and a face in the race — Farrell’s.
