GOP may not pay price for repealing Obamacare
Democrats are guilty of excessive optimism if they think they’re going to wipe the floor in next year’s elections with the California House Republicans who voted to repeal and replace Obamacare.
Oh, the Republicans will catch grief in their districts over the next few days while the House is in recess, from constituents worried about losing their health insurance under the GOP bill that passed Thursday. But there’s a good chance that the worst parts of the House bill — and boy, is there a lot to choose from — won’t ever make their way to the White House for President Trump’s signature, because they won’t get through the Senate.
If that’s what happens, the House vote will be just a memory by November 2018 — and a very distant memory at that.
And even if Senate Republicans prove just as cruel as their House colleagues and kick millions of Medicaid recipients and other lower-income people off their coverage plans, the brutal political truth is that those folks’ voting rate is low — a lot lower than among older people, for example, most of whom have some form of coverage.
Those people will still have coverage even if the GOP plan passes. Some of them might be mad at the Republicans now — but if they’re not the ones who get hurt by repeal-andreplace, their anger will recede.
Great event for outgoing state Democratic Party Chair John Burton the other night in Chinatown. Everyone who is anyone is local politics was there — City Attorney Dennis Herrera, District Attorney George Gascón, state Sen. Scott Wiener, former state Sen. Mark Leno and Supervisor Mark Farrell.
In other words, just about everyone thinking of running for mayor in 2019.
But the most interesting thing I heard was a whispered conversation among some heavyweights about the possibility that Priscilla Chan could be persuaded to run.
Now that would be interesting.
The complaints about traffic get louder every day. The one consistent gripe: Ride-hailing outfits and those personal Chariot shuttle buses are clogging the streets.
It’s not hard to spot an Uber or Lyft driver, even without a logo on the car. He’s the guy creeping along because he doesn’t know the town, checking his cell phone GPS tracker to find his way.
Whatever public benefit we supposedly once got from ride-hailing services taking other people’s cars off the road has evaporated. We need to figure out how to strike a balance — otherwise, the city’s whole transit-first policy is in danger of going into reverse.
Why is it that President Trump always needs to see himself as the winner in every dealing he has with any other human being?
Case in point: The agreement that congressional Republicans and Democrats reached to fund the government through September. Initially, the White House condemned it as no good. An hour later, the same complainers took credit for having achieved the compromise.
Too bad for Trump that he couldn’t be seen as having decreed the deal by executive fiat. That practice, of which he’s grown so fond, is reminiscent of how dictators secure their triumphs.
Movie time: “Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent.” Finally, someone has made a film featuring two of my favorite subjects: food and celebrity.
We have here the story of how cooks became star chefs and how California cuisine turned food into a movement.
At the center is the ever-engaging Tower, serving up food, style and controversy. From his early days with Alice Waters at Chez Panisse to his own creation, Stars restaurant in an alley near San Francisco City Hall, his pioneering efforts to use locally grown food helped create a worldwide phenomenon.
His is a true San Francisco story that should be seen and fully appreciated.
Board of Supervisors President London Breed invited me out to City College the other day to celebrate the success of its culinary school. I found out that most restaurants in San Francisco include among their employees graduates of City College.
It’s a great source of employment from a tuition-free, quality program. Another hidden gem of the city that Herb Caen always said equals heaven.
Great line from a cabbie the other day as a guy crossed against the light, his eyes glued to his phone.
“We used to have pedestrians. Now we have pe-text-rians.”