A large crowd showed up in the Golden Gate Park panhandle Saturday to launch the campaign of a slate of progressive candidates for the Democratic County Central Committee that is running in direct opposition to the attempt by billionaires to take over the local party.
“I’m tired of the billionaires trying to buy our elections,” Peter Gallota, a DCCC candidate, told the crowd. “I’m tired of the other side trying to write the obituary of the progressive movement.”
Former Sup. Jane Kim, who directs the Working Families Party, said that “the fight for the Democratic Party is a fight for what it means to be a Democrat.” She quoted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who often says that she’s not moving the party to the left; she’s “moving it home.”
Kim Tavaglione, executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council, asked if candidates “support millionaires who want AI to replace us?”
That’s going to be the theme of the campaign: The progressive slate is going to challenge, repeatedly, the role that big money is playing in trying to take over SF politics.
It will be a defining struggle that will continue from the March primary to the November general election, when the Mayor’s Office and control of the Board of Supes will hang in the balance.
The Big Tech and Big Real Estate money is pushing a slate for the DCCC because the endorsement of the Democratic Party will be critical or local offices in November.
In the past, the big money hasn’t been able to defeat progressive candidates. This time, the mayor and her allies have put a bunch of measures on the ballot that have little actual relevance, but can serve to drive conservative voters to the polls.
Ballots will arrive in the mail early in February.
