Last Night's Election Didn't End San Francisco's Political Civil War—It Reignited It
http://www.modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/last-nights-election-didnt-end-san-franciscos-political-civil-war-it-reignited-i
On Oct. 2, once and future supervisor Aaron Peskin was spotted at his preferred roost, Caffe Trieste, having a latte with the head of a Bay Area business-sponsored advocacy organization. It was he, not Peskin, who had sought out the meeting. That's what happens when the powers-that-be get wind that you're going to win your election.
Shortly thereafter, when queried about the supposedly neck and neck race he was running with mayoral appointee Supervisor Julie Christensen, Peskin waved off the question. It wasn't going to be so close, he said: His campaign had identified nearly all the voters it would need. His internal polling put him at around 58 percent. He felt Team Christensen had waited too long to begin flinging mud at him in earnest; perhaps they'd knock him down to 54 percent or so. "I think I have this thing in the bag," he said all those days ago....
Though Lee is undoubtedly cheered by the passing of his $310 million housing bond (Prop A), and the failure of Airbnb legislation (Prop F) and the Mission moratorium (Prop I), the turn of events in District 3 was an unmitigated loss for the mayor. It was Lee, remember, who saw fit to pick this fight when he appointed Christensen to David Chiu's vacant seat over planning commissioner Cindy Wu (the preferred choice of Chinatown power broker and estranged Lee ally Rose Pak, among others). In the end, the mayor tapped a candidate who was more loyal than electable; in trying to have it all by picking Christensen, the mayor provoked Peskin into the race—and lost it all. Lee has enabled his ablest critic to attain far more power and influence on the cusp of next year's political maelstrom of six contested supervisorial races.
In a silver lining for Lee, he did win his own election. And his pet housing bond passed easily, the Mission moratorium was crushed, and Prop F—which Airbnb pumped some $8.3 million into quashing—was defeated. But far from snuffing out efforts to more tightly regulate home-sharing, Airbnb's orgiastic parade of ads warning of a Pyongyang-like police state if Prop F passed united a disparate opposition. That was a recurring theme Tuesday night; the mayor and his allies provided the city's anemic left with something it could never have produced on its own: cohesiveness. "This campaign season," Peskin told San Francisco, "has been, in many ways, one of unifying interests in this city against a common malady—in the form of some billionaire tech titans who are acting like railroad barons."
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