From the Trenches of the Grassroots

From the Trenches of the Grassroots
Chance Martin



Thursday, December 4th 2003



Five days out from December 9th’s mayoral runoff and the mood at Matt Gonzalez’s volunteer headquarters is giddy… no, make that festive. Folks in the volunteer lounge were standing around the piano singing Christmas carols as I dashed out the door to someplace I could monopolize a computer long enough to pound out these words. And even as I do so now, a quietly nagging voice is the back of my head is urging me to return. ‘Hurry, you might miss something’, it tells me.



So many strange and wonderful things have already happened under the Gonzalez campaign’s roof in the space of any day, it’s a safe bet that San Francisco seldom sees a campaign like Matt’s.



That’s because Matt Gonzalez has fully established his identity as the candidate of possibilities, as well as the promoter of public participation in political process. And candidate Matt Gonzalez has breathed something rare called critical analysis into local electoral debate; something mostly unheard of at City Hall prior to district elections. It’s called representing the public interest, and not solely those of the corporate and political sponsors who paid for your seat at the table.



It was something Matt brought to District Five as Supervisor, and quite a breath of fresh air Matt brought to the Board of Supervisors as Board President. And maybe Matt’s success is evidence that even we jaded San Francisco voters can still instinctively honor a demonstratively principled person who eschews hype, no matter what the other guys fabricate.



Despite Newsom campaign operatives’ best and most desperate shots, they haven’t yet solved the puzzle of how to stall the Gonzalez challenge. As the campaign clock winds down their increasingly desperate and theatrical aerobatics only increase Matt’s momentum.



Yes, they do bluster and blather. Yes, corporate San Francisco does own and control most of what you watch on TV and read in the newspaper. Yes, San Francisco machine “democrats” will overburden both mailboxes and postal carriers with a daily barrage of slickly executed and utterly false election mailers alerting voters to some very appalling circumstances regarding a young man named Matt Gonzalez.



That’s because San Francisco’s real guardians of the political status quo – the folks whose continued power and resources are predicated on maintaining a downtown-funded political machine -- feel mighty threatened by the prospect of Mayor Matt Gonzalez… and they want you to feel that way too. In fact, they’ve raised an alarmingly unprecedented $ 3.3 million to date (that we know about) to ensure that will happen, and have now even spent more than the fortune they’ve already raised because they’re beginning to panic.



But who’s listening to them?



Every day, fewer and fewer identified voters are buying what they’re selling. That’s the truth. Maybe it’s because most people in this town can agree we’ve all had at least one too many choices made for us in recent elections. Maybe it’s because we’re getting pretty fed up with seeing candidates connected to generational political dynasties, who just happen to also enjoy the most bucks and corporate support, blatantly steal elected offices under the ubiquitously nefarious camouflage of plausible deniability.



Dirty campaign tactics. Election fixing. Strong-arming commercial media and undermining whatever ragged ethics and accountability we can still maintain on campaign finance reporting. It all costs a lot of money to do stuff like that, like the same kind of money it takes to engage a squeaky-clean judge like Gavin Newsom’s dad to manage the estate of the most nakedly aggressive global capitalist baron of the 20th century.



The Newsoms and the Gettys -- family friends. Can you just imagine the coincidence?



Of course, we all know what model corporate citizens the global oil industry is. And I seem to recall America is at this moment fighting an unjust war on their behalf for what has been presidentially-promised to be the foreseeable future. Oil is the very wheel the global economy turns upon, and at least one American will die today on the desert plains of Iraq as a tribute to it.



That’s the opposition: business as usual… piles upon piles of bucks and bodies and the unbelievably rancorous bullshit that makes voting way too odious for the eligible majority to bear. Most voters don’t believe they enjoy much real choice anyway. To these folks, similar to the WWF (or isn’t it now the WWE?), elections have become badly choreographed and dramatically staged spectacles, outcomes predetermined by the commercial interests sponsoring the show.



But this is what I want to tell every last one of you discouraged folks who feel too tired and apathetic from working their butts off just to stay even with the cost of living in San Francisco to take the time to vote on Tuesday, December 9th: the opposition, business as usual, Gavin Newsom and his friends, are scared.



They’re all afraid of losing the corporate/political lock they’ve had on San Francisco for most of the last generation.



They’re afraid of Matt Gonzalez because he can unite San Francisco. Witnessing the unprecedented alliances Matt has pulled together – seeing Matt pull ahead in the polls, the signs in windows all over this town. To them, this Supervisor Matt Gonzalez is a threat.



The Gonzalez campaign can’t seem to keep enough phones going for all the legions of volunteers who come to call their neighbors and tell them about Matt. Sometimes we have so many volunteers we can’t keep all their hands busy. Tonight it was a contingent of democrats for Kucinich, last weekend a flock of folks with Dean buttons. Young people and old people of every possible flavor and persuasion; people who never get excited about the mayor’s race and who have never experienced a grassroots populist campaign for a young municipal politician like Matt Gonzalez.



They’re afraid of Matt Gonzalez because he has proven he won’t be compromised, intellectually or ethically. Voters are watching campaign ethics and finance accusations flying both ways in the final days of the runoff, and ethically-challenged Gavin is so bewildered about why nothing sticks to Matt that he and his staff whined to the press about it for a solid week prior to the Al Gore dog-and-pony show. There’s a word for why loyal machine democrats would fork over good money to watch those two losers in armchairs speak for an hour to impart five minutes worth of message… that word is Denial.



They’re afraid of Matt Gonzalez because he wants to restore the reins of democracy to people just like you and me, people who live and work in San Francisco, and not just the few who sit at the center of financial power in this town.



See, Matt Gonzalez wants to empower the people of San Francisco, and if Newsom and his buddies are scared of Matt, they’re positively terrified of people like you and me. Matt already proved during last summer’s budget cycle as Board of Supervisors President that he would work tirelessly to protect and preserve our public services and programs. And he is passionately committed to ensuring that this can remain a city where we can all still afford to live and work. A sustainable and financially pragmatic city steered by sound policy, not soundbite politics.



That’s what Gavin Newsom and his friends are afraid of. It’s a rarified ideal called democracy: of the people, by the people, and for the people. A rarified ideal who’s very soul has been mortgaged to corporate America.



That’s why Gavin Newsom and his friends are spending so much money to deter you from voting for Matt Gonzalez. They’re threatened because they know Matt’s idea of what constitutes democracy would interrupt business as usual and the real status quo at city hall. It isn’t an ideological decision for them; it’s simply perpetuating the economic advantage they’ve established at the expense of all the rest of us.



Nothing personal, just business as usual.



Ask yourself this: Are these the guys we want squeezing us more every day us to protect their bottom line in a turbulent economy? Or in much simpler terms, which mayoral candidate would be author of the least human suffering if elected? It’s really an easy choice, a choice anyone can feel proud to make.



Please, join us.



Help us elect Matt Gonzalez mayor of San Francisco on Tuesday, December 9th. Or go to city hall and vote any weekday prior to the election. And bring along a friend, you’ll feel better if you do, believe me. Come by Matt’s headquarters at 1751 Mission Street to volunteer for getting out the vote, or volunteer to be a poll watcher. And if you need a ride to your polling place on election day, just call (415) 734-9340 extension 325 and we’ll give you a ride.



There’s a unique and wonderful thing that only you can bring to this campaign that we know we need to win: your participation. If we all work together, we can take this city back.



People just like you and me.