Ammiano botches ol' Frisco outleft; San Francisco acts surprised

San Francisco Supervisor Tom Ammiano demonstrates refined proficiency by bungling a dumb idea in only two weeks.

I don't know what circumstances brought about Supervisor Ammiano authoring a resolution to commend protesters for attempting to shut down a San Francisco conference. BIO 2004 brought 20,000 people from 65 countries to San Francisco for a global conference. Today, a small group of 200 protesters failed in shutting down the conference but succeed in harassing and intimidating guests while providing the entire world examples of San Francisco pushing an anti-business agenda.

Somewhere along the line somebody must have convinced Ammiano to pull his head out of his ass because the resolution died at quiet death at the Board of Supervisors.

Backed into a corner

Ammiano's silly resolution was a gesture to San Francisco's progressives because Ammiano is scared to death that the progressives are going to abandon him again.

After mounting the most amazing write-in campaign any of us will ever see, the pitbulls of the far-left wasted little time in complaining about Ammiano's ineffectual leadership. This escalated during last year's race for mayor when Frontlines stabbed Ammiano in the back just after Labor Day with a hit story titled, "Why and How Tom Ammiano Lost his Thunder..."

This was soon followed by a Rachel Gordon report titled, "Ammiano leans toward center; Some say guru of progressives is now leaving the left behind." The Examiner followed suit with, "Ammiano fights to prove he's still the one." In the debates, Ammiano was forced to deny moving to the center.

The criticism stuck and the voters handed Ammiano an embarrassing fourth place finish in the race to replace Willie Brown.

Far-Left Failures

While the far left slapped Ammiano with the sell-out label, the rest of San Francisco looked at Ammiano as a failed relic. This reputation was earned when Ammiano went hard to the far left and suffered critical defeats at the ballot box. The first time was when Mark Leno beat Ammiano's Eileen Hanson and was re-elected Supervisor in District 8. Two years later, Ammiano again backed Hanson, who again lost, this time to Bevan Dufty.

But Ammiano's biggest loss in 2002 occurred when Leno beat Harry Britt to earn a seat in the State Assembly. While Leno is breathtakingly progressive he was originally appointed by Willie Brown, which denied him knowledge of the far left's secret handshake. [For the record, Leno is now twice the progressive power Ammiano ever hoped to be.]

Failed Outlefts

After peaking, Ammiano found out three times that it takes more than the ol' Frisco outleft to succeed. Yet he again pulled a counter-productive outleft with this weeks' resolution and again he bungled the move when his progressive "friends" on the Board voted to quietly kill the resolution.

And yet again the progressives are leaving his camp during an election year.

- Bob Brigham
Bob Brigham Politics: Bay to the Beltway
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