State Sen. Scott Wiener didn’t show up to the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council Congressional candidate forum, which is not a surprise: Wiener doesn’t like audiences or panels that challenge him, and in this campaign has refused to engage with groups that might not support him.
That doesn’t seem like a good sign for someone who wants to represent almost of San Francisco in Congress for the next few decades.
But the HANC forum, and the events of the past few weeks, have framed the non-Wiener candidates and where they stand not just on national but on local issues.
Saikat Chakrabarti, who promotes himself as an ally of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders, told HANC that he supported Daniel Lurie for mayor because he was “outside the political establishment.” Lurie was also, of course, a billionaire insider. Chakrabarti said he supported Bilal Mahmood for D5 supe because they had worked together on state climate legislation and he “preferred” Mahmood’s stance on housing.
Sup. Connie Chan said she supported Dean Preston for supe and Aaron Peskin for mayor.
Chakrabarti was supportive of Lurie’s (Rich) family Zoning Plan; Chan voted against it.
Chakrabarti has insisted that Mahmood is a progressive, and he “preferred” Mahmood’s policies on housing. The truth is that Preston initiated and supported far more housing, including affordable housing, than Mahmood has done.
Check out the numbers:
The lack of new housing starts has nothing to do with “red tape” and environmental review and everything to do with interest rates, costs, and the needs of speculative capital for high returns. Dean Preston backed the most important measures to tax the rich for affordable housing in decades; Mahmood wants to cut those taxes.
In fact, Mahmood is now working with the most conservative Democrat in the governor’s race, the anti-tax mayor of San Jose. Matt Mahan has endorsed Wiener.
So in a weird way, the candidate whose entire campaign is based on his association with the left wing of the national Democratic Party has allied himself with the right wing of the local Democratic Party. (At this point, neither Sanders nor AOC has endorsed in the San Francisco race. Neither has Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi).
Wiener and Chakrabarti are trading attack ads. Chakrabarti says (correctly) that Wiener’s campaign is paid for by big corporate money. Wiener says (correctly) that Chakrabarti’s self-funded campaign is made possible because of the wealth he accrued in the world of big corporate tech.
I’m not sure either attack is going to make much difference. Everybody who is at all clued into local politics and this race knows that Wiener has always been popular with Big Real Estate and Big Tech. Everybody knows, because Chakrabarti talks about it, that he got rich from his role as an early engineer at a fintech company, Stripe.
Neither is attacking Sup. Connie Chan, which may mean Chakrabarti thinks (correctly) that Wiener is ahead in the polls and will be one of the top two who go on to the November election, and Wiener thinks Chakrabarti has so much money he can buy his way into second place.
But there’s another important factor here: This is a mid-term primary, with no national or state races on the ballot. The main local races are for supes seats in D4 and D2.
Chan, a Chinese immigrant, is, of course, the only candidate who speaks Cantonese, and is popular in the heavily Chinese D4; if that race (which is all about closing the Great Highway) drives turnout, she will benefit. D2 is probably Wiener territory and likely a place where Chakrabarti and Chan will not do well.
Turnout on the more progressive East Side is going to be critical. If Chakrabarti convinces the progressives that he’s the next AOC, he’ll get a lot of votes. If those voters wonder about his support for the right-wing corporate slate that took over the local Democratic Party and his support for Mahmood over Dean Preston and his support for Lurie over Aaron Peskin, the picture gets a little different.
This primary is not going to be just about who gets what support; it’s also going to be about who votes, and how closely they pay attention to local, as well as national, politics.
Full disclosure: My daughter works for the Connie Chan for Congress campaign.
