Political Junkie: Ambush!
Okay, we'll admit it. San Francisco local politics as of late has been, shall we say, BORING. Boring boring boring boring. No shouting matches, no chicken suits, no revelations from either underage drinkers or hyphenated-named wives of best friends -- it's been slim pickings. So how excited are we to hear that the simmering cauldron of rage that is the Gavin Newsom-Chris Daly rivalry is heating up!!!! YES!!!!!!
So, according to Left in SF: before Fake Question Time 5 yesterday (which seems to have been boycotted by pretty much every news organization in town), there was a rally at City Hall (.pdf) for children and families.
And how exciting! The mayor was there! Gavin Newsom, on his home turf, gives a rallying cry of a speech: why do families leave San Francisco, something's got to be done, let's build 3100 more units of affordable housing. Applause! Gavin leaves the stage so the next speaker can take the stage.
Next speaker, please! .....Uh oh! Did they say Chris...... DALY????
Chris Daly takes the mike. He thanks the organizers of the rally. And then he says, "I want you to know that Gavin Newsom is a hypocrite." AAAAAAAAAAAAH!! They look in the audience. Gavin has turned his back on the speaker. AAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!
After the jump: why's Newsom a hypocrite? And Newsom's return salvo, scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. Yay! SF politics is fun again!
Picture of Gavin supporter from the Newsom reelection website.
Daly then launches into his speech, which is all about how Newsom says he supports affordable housing but then vetoes Daly's budget, which was actually going to pay for affordable housing. Blah blah blah, we need a better mayor, let's get a progressive candidate, I'm having a progressive conference, there's going to be an announcement on June 2.
We only say blah blah blah because you know at this point if we'd been at this rally, we'd totally be looking for the steam coming out of Newsom's ears and a little whistle going off over his head. And Gavin did not disappoint!
Left in SF (the only news source that appeared to be on the scene for this) says that numerous sources are saying that Gavin was indeed "extremely upset" about the upstaging -- and that Gavin spent the speech shaking his head in disgust, while also being besieged by student advocates about why his administration has defunded school-to-work programs in the school district. (He says he's going to look into it.)
Left in SF is worried that Daly's antics will hurt the kids. That's because Left in SF is a nicer, more thoughtful blog than SFist's Political Junkie!
Returning salvo, Mr. Newsom? Well, you can't say Gavin doesn't give as good as he gets -- if you look at the Act Locally SF Newsom reelection campaign website, they're encouraging all of Gavin's supporters to show up tomorrow for a rally in favor of the Google-Earthlink wifi plan, and then to go offer testimony in favor of the program at the 2 p.m. Budget and Finance Committee meeting on the topic that Chris Daly is chairing.
Will Gavin be there too? And hey, if he is, can you guys just make that Board of Supes meeting into a Question Time? That would rule. Yay! San Francisco politics is fun again!