San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Cox could be more than bump in road for Newsom
Gavin Newsom got the Republican opponent he wanted for November’s general election, but it may turn into a much bumpier ride to the finish line than he imagined.
Businessman John Cox is not to be underestimated. Coming out of the gate in the general election campaign, Cox is looking more in tune with many California voters, both in substance and style, than Newsom.
Newsom is clearly a celebrity, and he was acting like one during his “Governor Newsom” victory stroll through the Ferry Building the day after the primary. Cox comes across much less as a polished politician and more like the guy who would help you load your sport utility vehicle for a family weekend trip to Clear
Lake.
And listen again to his victory speech Tuesday night, if you want to know how he’s going to hammer Newsom. It isn’t just that we need to build more housing — it’s that the price of housing is ridiculous. The schools are a mess and have been for years. And who’s responsible for that? Not the Republicans — they haven’t had a whiff of power in Sacramento for nearly a decade.
And then there’s the big one. You’ll be hearing a lot about rolling back the state’s 12-cents-agallon increase in the gas tax, which will pay for $52 billion in road and bridge improvements.
A repeal measure is likely to be on the November ballot. Cox supports the repeal and says Caltrans, which gets to spend the money, is a joke. Let’s look back at the Bay Bridge eastern span project — want to disagree with him?
Newsom will be all in on the gas tax hike, as prices push up against $4 a gallon — or go past it. There are vast stretches of this state where that will be a toxic political mix.
Newsom also thinks he can turn Cox into Donald Trump. Maybe, but again, Cox will point to California’s problems and say Trump didn’t cause them. So it may all come down to whether Californians think their state is in pretty good shape or a steaming mess.
Don’t be surprised if Cox gets big help from conservative super PACS like the ones that handle the Koch brothers’ money. National conservatives think Newsom is a possible presidential contender somewhere down the line, and they’ll see this election as a chance to knock him back a bit.
I still think Newsom is going to win. But it’s not going to be the glide that
Democrats expect.
He knows the way: I was down in San Jose the other day to see Mayor Sam Liccardo. The guy is very much in touch with San Francisco politics. He told me about how he and state Assemblyman David Chiu and Supervisor Jane Kim used to hang out together when they were all fresh out of law school. Chiu and Kim were housemates with some other people, and Liccardo often slept on the couch.
I joked that he drew the short straw and wound up in San Jose.
He laughed and pointed out the window of the high-rise City Hall overlooking San Jose. “It’s much bigger than San Francisco,” he said. “Look at all that land out there. I can build — you can’t.”
Touche. Pardon me: Would President Trump pardon himself ?
Of course he would. Trump is totally indifferent to the law.
Would it it hurt him with the American public? Not with the 42 percent of voters who are giving him a thumbs-up.
Trump’s voters love his constant defiance of normal constitutional practices. Rankled choice: AsI write this, it’s not clear who San Francisco’s next mayor will be. The election results may not be known for days.
But whatever the outcome, many people will not be happy. They will point the finger at the city’s ranked-choice voting system, which gives everyone three picks at once, rather than the old way of putting the top two vote-getters in a runoff.
My biggest gripe with the instant runoff is that it takes away the chance for one-on-one debates that allow voters to clearly see the differences between candidates. Under ranked choice everyone runs in a pack, with those who know from the get-go that they can’t win coupling up like tag-team wrestlers to slam the leader.
Plus, if you don’t vote for one of the top candidates among your three picks, your vote eventually gets tossed.
All this can lead to outcomes like the 2010 supervisors race in which Malia Cohen was elected. She got just under 12 percent of the first-place votes in District 10 and was in third place on election night, out of a gigantic field of 21 candidates. Once all the ranked-choice sorting was done, she prevailed — based on fewer than half the votes cast. All the rest were “exhausted” — they didn’t count in the end.
That’s a lot of people left out in the cold.
And by the way, the Russians would have a field day if they ever hacked into the counting system.
By the numbers: The cabbies in this town never cease to surprise me. The other day I got into a ride and gave the cabbie my office address.
“Isn’t that down by the Area Code Building?” the cabbie asked.
“The Area Code Building?”
“Yeah, that new highrise.”
“You mean the Salesforce Tower?”
“No, I mean the Area Code Building.”
And indeed, when we drove by the Salesforce building, the cabbie pointed to the address — 415 Mission.
When I asked a Green Cab driver to take me to Embarcadero and Mission, he said, “You mean the Whiskey Building?
“Back in 1906 it was a bar, and the bartenders supplied the firefighters with whiskey. They reciprocated by saving the building.”
Which reminds me — for years cabbies have called the House of Prime Rib the Earthquake, because it’s located at 1906 Van Ness.
Tourists often ask cabbies to take them to SS. Peter and Paul’s Church in North Beach.
The address: 666 Filbert St.
If you have any more names or numbers, send them in.