I love to visit San Francisco. I am filled with "Schadenfreude" for it today. :>)
Money quote: "San Francisco voters are very sophisticated,"
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In State's Last Bastion Of Liberals, Recall Lost
San Francisco Bay Area Stunned by Actor's Victory
By Evelyn Nieves
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 11, 2003; Page A03
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 10 -- When friends back home in London ask Lionel French what it's like to live in the States, he tells them he wouldn't know -- he lives in San Francisco.
"I tell them this is another country altogether," said the graphic artist, sipping green tea Friday afternoon at the Dolores Park Cafe in the city's bohemian Mission District. "I don't know anyone who supported the war in Iraq or the recall of Gray Davis," said French, 29, who moved here two years ago. "And it would certainly be a day's work to find anyone who voted for bloody Arnold Schwarzenegger."
Yes, the San Francisco Bay Area is different. The recall proves it, once and for all. The nine counties of the Bay Area, which includes the famous liberal bastions of Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco, distinguished themselves as the main swath where the recall lost. And here on Planet San Francisco, the recall that won with 54 percent statewide lost by 80 percent.
Compare that with the state's other Democratic bastion, Los Angeles, where 51 percent of voters opted against the recall, and the Bay Area becomes the last place in the state where the Democratic Party has a stronghold, or the Republican Party has no new clout.
And so, the city has been moody since Tuesday's vote. The shock of the new governor is still as raw and painful as a fresh fall off a concrete curb. While voters elsewhere have celebrated, San Francisco's bruised electorate is more than a little depressed.
"People are disgusted, embarrassed, fearful and wanting to secede from the rest of the state," said Van Jones, founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, which advocates education over incarceration for troubled juveniles. Jones, who was also a key campaign aide to Arianna Huffington's independent campaign, said that progressives, or liberals, are also proud of the way they stood up to the recall challenge -- proud of that 80 percent.
Many people here say that, like most Californians, they were less than pleased with Democratic Gov. Davis's job performance. But they also believed that the recall was an unfair attempt to subvert an honestly won election, and part of a Republican strategy to make inroads in California for the 2004 presidential election.
And that, they say, they would not help happen.
"San Francisco voters are very sophisticated," said Mark Leno, a freshman state assemblyman. "The 80-to-20 vote is more than just Democrats saying no to the recall. It's independents and members of the Green Party who all came together. We understood unequivocally that this was a power grab."
In the last days of the campaign, Leno proposed a bill in response to allegations of sexual misconduct leveled at Schwarzenegger by 15 women. The bill, which local reporters dubbed "Arnold's law," would strengthen the penalties levied against those convicted of sexual battery. Leno also said he would hold Schwarzenegger responsible for protecting a comprehensive domestic partnership law that Davis signed in the last days of the campaign.
Republicans in the legislature have begun a campaign to rescind the law, known as AB 205, in a referendum on the March 2004 ballot. "If Schwarzenegger is really going to be the governor for all the people," Leno said, "then I insist that he denounce the referendum on AB 205. I will insist in the coming weeks that he urge voters not to sign the referendum petitions."
The most powerful state legislator, Senate President Pro Tempore John L. Burton (D), another San Francisco liberal, is likewise unbowed by Schwarzenegger's victory. "If he wants to take money away from the aged, blind and disabled, if he wants to take money away from poor women and children, I don't think so," Burton said at a news conference Wednesday.
In an interview Friday, Burton added that the election does not mean Democrats need to necessarily worry. "Ninety percent of the vote seemed to be ad hominem against Davis," he said. "It's not about Democrats in the Bay Area. The recall was a foregone conclusion as soon as it was certified -- all the polls said it would win."
Longtime liberal Democratic activists are a little worried, though. Robert Haaland, a union organizer and president of the city's Harvey Milk Democratic Club, said it was time for Democrats to learn a few lessons from the GOP.
"What has been going on in Texas," Haaland said, referring to attempts to redraw congressional districts to favor GOP victories in 2004, "what happened in Florida, and what's going on in California are all efforts that signal a very smart, organized effort on the part of the Republicans. It's unfortunate but true that the left tends to be divided and less capable of ideological loyalty. It's a struggle."
Paul Boden, executive director of San Francisco's Coalition on Homelessness, said that even here, it was difficult to persuade his clients to vote against the recall. "For a lot of poor people, especially the poor people that I hang out with, it was really hard to get them to go out there and support Gray Davis," he said. "We've had over $2 million in cuts in substance abuse programs under Gray Davis -- that was under the freaking Democrats! That's why I think the Democratic Party needs to reestablish that there's a difference between Democrats and Republicans."
In San Francisco, where Republicans are scarce, voters seemed a little worried that the GOP might take over now. Peter Coonen, 60, a mechanical designer, voted for the first time in 30 years. He was angry, he said. "It's not like I was in love with Gray Davis."
Nor was Angela Somers, 38, a personal trainer at a gym, who also voted no on the recall because she believes Schwarzenegger is a puppet for the Republican Party. "He was put in there," she said, "to appeal to people who are uninformed about politics."
She knows she sounds paranoid. But she does not feel alone, because she lives in San Francisco, where so many people sound the same way. "I'd feel alone," she said, "if I lived in Modesto or something."
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