{"id":28779,"date":"2023-09-28T13:34:06","date_gmt":"2023-09-28T20:34:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=28779"},"modified":"2023-09-28T13:34:08","modified_gmt":"2023-09-28T20:34:08","slug":"daniel-lurie-heavily-alters-the-mayors-race-but-can-he-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/09\/28\/daniel-lurie-heavily-alters-the-mayors-race-but-can-he-win\/","title":{"rendered":"Daniel Lurie heavily alters the mayor\u2019s race. But can he win?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"\" by\u00a0JOE ESKENAZI<\/a><\/strong> SEPTEMBER 26, 2023 (MissionLocal.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Daniel
Philanthropist Daniel Lurie today affixed his signature to the necessary papers at the Department of Elections to run for San Francisco’s mayor in 2024. Behind him is his beaming wife, Becca Prowda. Photo by Xueer Lu. September 26, 2023.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Surely it was a coincidence that Mayor London Breed announced her new initiative to force welfare recipients into mandatory drug testing and treatment at the very moment Daniel Lurie was signing papers to run for mayor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you spend even a moment to examine the substance behind her proposal<\/a>, it dissipates like a mirage: The city lacks available treatment slots for willing participants, let alone the unwilling; housed drug users would risk being put out onto the streets during an ongoing homelessness crisis; and drug users denied income would resort to theft and robbery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, as a capital-s Statement, it suffices. The mayor is Tough on Crime and this is what Accountability looks like \u2014 and it forces those namby-pambies on the Board of Supervisors to explain why they\u2019re Soft on Crime and hate Accountability and why giving money to dope fiends is good (and when you\u2019re explaining, you\u2019re losing). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lurie\u2019s long-foreseen<\/a> and highly choreographed entry into the race today prompts two immediate questions: Can he win? <\/em>and How will he affect the campaign? <\/em>The answer to the first question will become clearer over time, but the answer to the second is already manifesting itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It sure feels like Breed has reached the point in her mayoralty that Nixon did in his presidency when he compelled Henry Kissenger<\/a> to kneel and pray with him. Her proposal to force welfare recipients to piss in a cup before getting their subsistence dollars sounds like something Pete Wilson or Kevin Faulconer would\u2019ve tubthumped for while they were serving as mayors of San Diego. So, it\u2019s hard not to read moves like this one as an attempt by the mayor to shore up her right flank as a scion of the San Francisco establishment tosses his hat into the ring. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The competition for center-right votes in San Francisco appears to be at a premium. In addition to Lurie and Breed, Supervisor Ahsha Safa\u00ed is a declared candidate for mayor. As such, there appears to be a gaping lane to run in for a candidate-to-be-named-later espousing center-left ideas. And, now, the mayor is facing new constraints. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The real winner today? It may be the establishment and the powers-that-be. Union stalwart Safa\u00ed may serve as a check against the mayor, facing a horrifying 2024 budget scenario<\/a>, wholly unloading on labor. And establishment scion Lurie could serve the same purpose, to rein in Breed from doing anything that much upsets the business community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The deeply unpopular mayor, already facing a difficult reelection bid as the city\u2019s economic and social climates falter, now must additionally navigate between this political Scylla and Charybdis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Mayor London Breed in November 2018. Photo by Abraham Rodriguez<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Daniel Lurie, 46, bucked the San Francisco trend and actually wore a tie with his suit when he signed papers today at the Department of Elections. He\u2019s a trim man, and not particularly tall \u2014 unless he\u2019s standing on his wallet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is the heir to the fortune of Levi Strauss, the pants company that epitomizes San Francisco (and, indeed, the free west). But his wealth is matched by the scope of his Rolodex. Lurie has spent his adult life fundraising among local and national heavy-hitters to direct money \u2014 theirs and his \u2014 to benevolent nonprofits. This fundraising prowess will figure to serve him well in his nascent run for office.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re a Lurie fan, you\u2019re hoping voters will focus more on what Lurie has done with his money than the staggering amount he\u2019s got. For Mayor Breed, who grew up in abject poverty in the city\u2019s rough projects and has lived a life befitting a Horatio Alger tale, it\u2019s hard to conceive of a better matchup when pitching voters on lived experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem for the mayor is that she\u2019s the multi-term incumbent. There are few politicians in the history of politicians who can out-origin-story London Breed. But there are few mayors who\u2019ve ever come back from underwater polling numbers and the perception of filth, lawlessness and chaos on city streets that have coalesced around Breed in her five-and-a-half years \u2014 five-and-a-half years \u2014 <\/em>as this city\u2019s elected leader. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Political strategists I spoke with were split on whether Lurie needed to find ways to distinguish himself from the mayor, policy-wise, or simply assert that they differ little ideologically, but she\u2019s incompetent and he is not. Vamos a ver. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will also be on Lurie to convince voters that he is, indeed, competent. Tipping Point, his nonprofit, has raised and spent gobs of money on homeless and social causes. But has it made a difference? That\u2019s Lurie\u2019s argument to make; it certainly hasn\u2019t helped to the extent<\/a> he would\u2019ve wanted. It will also be on Lurie to tell us who the hell he is, exactly. Unlike another billionaire San Francisco Daddy Warbucks-type figure, Marc Benioff, Lurie is not well-known outside of the world of wealthy philanthropists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Benioff, meanwhile, has used his personal and business wealth to play an outsize role in this city<\/a>, even though nobody actually knows what Salesforce does.<\/em>   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Supervisor Ahsha Safa\u00ed, a mayoral candidate, says voters have give Mayor London Breed her shot: \u2018She\u2019s had six years, going on seven. It\u2019s hard to argue that anyone is obstructing her ability to lead this city.\u2019 Photo by Joe Eskenazi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Lurie was all smiles today at his official kickoff but, strategically, he\u2019s poured himself a bit of a drink from the poisoned chalice. If he fails to gain traction against the mayor described in the Washington Post<\/em><\/a> as \u201chapless,\u201d then that\u2019s hardly optimal. But if Lurie, indeed, strips away support from our faltering mayor, then other candidates may feel inclined to leap into the fray. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are only so many ways you can split the moderate vote, and the 2024 mayoral race may yet recapitulate the 2019 district attorney\u2019s contest \u2014 in which moderate candidates locked down some two-thirds of the first-place votes, but Chesa Boudin won by effectively gobbling up second- and third-place ballots (and, in Mayor Breed\u2019s case, it doesn\u2019t figure that many voters choosing her competitors will put her as a No. 2 or No. 3). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the answer to the big question \u2014 can Lurie win? \u2014 is complicated. Because the better he does, the more competition he figures to engender. Nobody is saying much right now, but nobody has to. Breed is faced with the unenviable task that doomed Boudin, of attempting to convince voters that their subjective perceptions of filth and chaos and lawlessness are, in fact, not objectively rooted. If her poll numbers continue to hit rock bottom and start to dig, would-be contenders needn\u2019t make any serious moves until 2024. They can keep their powder dry \u2014 and next year may yet start off with a bang. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even potential candidates professing no interest in the job haven\u2019t yet taken a Sherman \u2014 an unequivocal statement akin to Gen. William T. Sherman\u2019s that they will not run for election and, if somehow still elected, will not serve<\/a>. And there will be plenty of tea leaves to read. What does it mean that City Attorney David Chiu is holding public-safety town halls throughout the city, and paying for them out of his campaign funds? Perhaps quite a bit. Or perhaps this, too, will dissipate like a mirage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does Daniel Lurie\u2019s entry portend a tipping point in this mayoral race? So it would seem. One way or another. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

MORE MAYORAL NEWS<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Daniel<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Daniel Lurie makes it official: He\u2019s running for mayor<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>by\u00a0XUEER LU<\/a><\/strong> SEPTEMBER 26, 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Ahsha<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ahsha Safa\u00ed in his own words: \u2018This mayor has no excuses\u2019<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>by\u00a0JOE ESKENAZI<\/a><\/strong> JULY 18, 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Will<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Will \u2018San Francisco that Works for Everyone\u2019 work for anyone?<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>by\u00a0JOE ESKENAZI<\/a><\/strong> AUGUST 31, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

JOE ESKENAZI<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

getbackjoejoe@gmail.com<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Managing Editor\/Columnist. Joe was born in San Francisco, raised in the Bay Area, and attended U.C. Berkeley. He never left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYour humble narrator\u201d was a writer and columnist for SF Weekly from 2007 to 2015, and a senior editor at San Francisco Magazine from 2015 to 2017. You may also have read his work in the Guardian (U.S. and U.K.); San Francisco Public Press; San Francisco Chronicle; San Francisco Examiner; Dallas Morning News; and elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He resides in the Excelsior with his wife and three (!) kids, 4.3 miles from his birthplace and 5,474 from hers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Northern California branch of the Society of Professional Journalists named Eskenazi the 2019 Journalist of the Year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0JOE ESKENAZI SEPTEMBER 26, 2023 (MissionLocal.org) Surely it was a coincidence that Mayor London Breed announced her new initiative to force welfare recipients into mandatory drug testing and treatment at the very moment Daniel Lurie was signing papers to run for mayor.  If you spend even a moment to examine… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1117,1119],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28779"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28779"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28780,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28779\/revisions\/28780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}