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by\u00a0JOE ESKENAZI<\/a><\/strong> APRIL 4, 2024 (MissionLocal.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Aaron](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/missionloca.s3.amazonaws.com\/mission\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/DSC_8112-e1712257722612.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1\")
San Francisco\u2019s well-kept secrets remain well-kept. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, for many months, there were few more loosely veiled secrets in this city than Board President Aaron Peskin\u2019s eventual declaration for mayor. When political strategists noted in February that the preponderance of center-right mayoral candidates \u201call but sends an engraved invitation<\/a>\u201d for a centrist or center-left candidate to join the fray, no one needed to actually engrave an invitation and send it to Peskin\u2019s North Beach abode. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So, yes, that was Peskin jaunting about town earlier this week for professional photographs against the backdrop of San Francisco\u2019s most scenic scenery. People notice stuff like that, too. Peskin couldn\u2019t call up associates and ask for money or endorsements \u2014 or wrangle a goodly portion of his 42 former Board of Supervisors colleagues as well as former mayors, state officials, Chinatown leaders, union figures and others to a 10 a.m. Saturday mayoral kickoff rally at Portsmouth Square with speechifying at 11 \u2014 and not have the news get out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s out. Will there be a lion dancer? \u201cNo,\u201d Peskin says. Another poorly kept secret revealed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Mayor London Breed and former mayor Mark Farrell paused yesterday afternoon from a session of moderate-on-moderate violence<\/a> to excoriate their new, more left-leaning competitor as a toxic bully and an anti-housing NIMBY warlord. Breed\u2019s campaign spokesman made dad-joke-like references to Peskin-as-Terminator: \u201cPeskin occupying the Mayor\u2019s Office would mean \u2018hasta la vista, baby\u2019 for our local economy, our housing, and our city\u2019s future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It warrants mentioning that in \u201cT2,\u201d the film featuring the dialog \u201cHasta la vista, baby,\u201d the Terminator is actually the good guy. You know, the guy fighting against <\/em>the tech-fueled apocalypse. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So, perhaps the more fitting analogy would\u2019ve been Peskin-as-Keyser S\u00f6ze \u2014 an elusive and infinitely powerful figure whose dark and unseen influence lurks behind every malign turn. That\u2019s certainly playing to the crowd for Breed and Farrell\u2019s stalwarts (in much the way that, a generation ago, Willie Brown served as the catch-all bogeyman for lefty stalwarts). <\/p>\n\n\n\n But moderates linking arms and dumping invective on Peskin does come with some risks: As the only unalloyed progressive in the race, torrents of abuse from figures progressives don\u2019t like can actually help <\/em>him. If you don\u2019t care for Farrell or Breed or Garry Tan or any of the others making Churchillian statements about fighting off a Peskin mayoralty at any cost, then their forthcoming torrent of negative material \u2014 which really will come at any <\/em>cost \u2014 could solidify Peskin\u2019s place as the last progressive standing, and drive up his name ID. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Or it could overwhelm him. In any event, the shitstorm is coming. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The book on running against Peskin now is pretty much the same<\/a> as it was back in 2015, when Mayor Ed Lee goaded him back into public life by appointing Julie Christensen as District 3 supervisor: <\/p>\n\n\n\n In an internal memo \u2026 a pollster hired by the Christensen campaign highlights voters\u2019 impressions \u2026 \u201cEspecially damning was [Peskin\u2019s] past behavior towards colleagues, agency heads, and constituents. No one likes a bully.\u201d \u2026 \u201cPeskin also took large hits for his obstructionism on popular neighborhood projects and past ethics concerns.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n As Peskin told me back then<\/a>, \u201cEvery single fucking stupid thing I\u2019ve done \u2014 and I\u2019ve done a few of them \u2014 is going to be all over the place.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, that happened. And it\u2019ll happen again. And, of course, there have been more fucking stupid things, leading up to Peskin\u2019s June 2021 admission<\/a> that he had a longstanding drinking problem and was entering recovery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So, that\u2019s new. But this will, counter-intuitively, play a large role in Peskin\u2019s public messaging. \u201cRecovery has been life-changing for me,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s no secret that the city you and I love has been struggling in ways that are real and perceived. And, I don\u2019t mean this to sound corny, but I have a notion that we are a city in need of recovery. Recovery is something I have come to know well. It\u2019s hard work.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are allusions at play here. Unsubtle allusions \u2014 a man in recovery to lead a city in need of one. Prior to Peskin\u2019s announcement, polling was floating around querying voters about their views on Peskin, recovery and Peskin in recovery. Do voters buy it? Do voters like<\/em> allusions? Vamos a ver. <\/p>\n\n\n\n San Francisco government\u2019s municipal addiction is, in Peskin\u2019s allusive telling, the intoxicating buzz of extreme negativity and ripping one\u2019s own city for short-term political gain. \u201cIt\u2019s the locally generated doom loop,\u201d he says. \u201cNot the external one. It\u2019s not leadership to keep blaming other people \u2026 Our leadership keeps finding other people to blame. Blame compassion, blame nonprofits, blame progressives, blame judges. It\u2019s time to stop the blame game. It\u2019s time to take responsibility and say the buck stops with the mayor.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPolitical leaders have fed into a concerted campaign from the inside that has been very divisive and negative,\u201d he continues. \u201cThis gets back to the recovery thing. People are beating themselves up. We can reverse that. For most of my life, this has been a place of some amount of joy and discovery and I don\u2019t want to beat up on San Francisco for political gain.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As to Peskin\u2019s own addictions, former Rep. John Burton was candid with voters about his cocaine problem<\/a> \u2014 and they re-elected him and re-re-elected him, and he is now an elder statesman of the local political scene. Supervisor Matt Dorsey turned the rather awkward position of being a meth addict while serving as the strategic communications director of the police department into one of the keystones of his political resume<\/a> \u2014 and a glowing New York Times <\/em>profile<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So this is not new ground. It\u2019s also smart \u2014 and necessary \u2014 politics. While Peskin\u2019s opponents will line up to call him an angry, vengeful drunk, Peskin is rushing to preemptively define himself as, instead, a man in recovery who no longer wants to engage in bellicosity for the sake of bellicosity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Besides, many of San Francisco\u2019s voters weren\u2019t here during Peskin\u2019s earlier, boozier, not-kinder and gentler years; they haven\u2019t heard this tale. Peskin would prefer to be the one to tell it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What kind of policy debates have we gotten in the mayor\u2019s race thus far? Longtime consultant Jim Ross jokes that it\u2019s been a contest between \u201csend armed National Guardsmen into the Tenderloin\u201d vs. \u201cSend in Seal Team Six!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Peskin provides \u201cThe mayor\u2019s race San Francisco deserves,\u201d Ross says. He\u2019ll bring a broader spectrum of views and policies into play: \u201cIt\u2019ll be a real debate on issues, not just a race to see who can come up with the furthest right-wing idea that\u2019s going to appeal to a specific slice of San Francisco.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Peskin is quick to point out \u201cat least one billionaire\u201d is backing Breed, Farrell and Lurie \u2014 one more than he\u2019s got. But San Francisco voters have repeatedly demonstrated that pointing out that the opposition is funded by shadowy networks of wealthy individuals is not, in and of itself, a winning strategy. Peskin will need to give voters something to vote for, not against. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So, it\u2019s on him to propose solutions for the city\u2019s rampant homelessness and drug-addiction crisis that go beyond sending the troops into the TL. It\u2019s on him to explain how, despite his reputation as the NIMBYs\u2019 chief vampire, that it would be Mayor Aaron Peskin who gets the most housing built via his ability to put people together and get to yes<\/a>. It\u2019s on him to explain how to revitalize downtown and replenish the police department and clean the streets and keep drivers from blowing stop signs and all the other gripes enumerated by San Francisco voters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n San Francisco voters, it seems, are a frustrated bunch. Whether Peskin\u2019s \u201cmessage of hope and resilience\u201d is the pitch the people were waiting for \u2014 and, even if they are, he\u2019s the preferred messenger \u2014 remains to be seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve ever gone through a period where you\u2019re depressed and something happens and you realize that nothing really changed \u2014\u00a0you\u2019re just seeing the world in a different way. And you\u2019re not depressed,\u201d he says. \u201cWe have to change the leadership of San Francisco in order to snap out of it.\u201d\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n getbackjoejoe@gmail.com<\/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.More by Joe Eskenazi<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The wait for Board President to declare for mayor is over by\u00a0JOE ESKENAZI APRIL 4, 2024 (MissionLocal.org) San Francisco\u2019s well-kept secrets remain well-kept. But, for many months, there were few more loosely veiled secrets in this city than Board President Aaron Peskin\u2019s eventual declaration for mayor. When political strategists noted… Continue reading ![\"Mark](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/missionloca.s3.amazonaws.com\/mission\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/candidates_20240212-930x418.png?resize=780%2C351&ssl=1\")
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![\"Mayor](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/missionloca.s3.amazonaws.com\/mission\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/1-1-854x640.jpg?resize=780%2C585&ssl=1\")
JOE ESKENAZI<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n