The Ammiano Effect
by Samson Wong

GOD AND DEVIL: If Nixon can go to China, Brown can go to the GOP.

Mayor Willie Brown did the unthinkable on Nov. 8, winning the endorsement of the S.F. Republican Party by an 18 to 6 vote, with two abstaining. Committee member Mike Fitzgerald said, “God save us,” then voted for Brown. Opposing member Stephen Brewer, President of the conservative S.F. Republican Assembly, called the Brown vote a “deal with the devil.” But he added, “Our endorsement for Tom Ammiano is to become the devil.”

The Republicans endorsed Mr. Democrat, Mayor Brown, who won 39 percent of the vote citywide on Nov. 2, out of fear that otherwise Board President Ammiano would be mayor. Republican consultant Chris Bowman called Ammiano a “socialist,” criticizing his $650 million in taxes for a living wage, transit, real estate transfers and stock transactions.

“We cannot afford the rape of this city,” said Bowman of Ammiano, who won 25 percent of the vote citywide, with especially strong showing in the most progressive areas of the city.

On the other hand, the party said to registered Republicans and the 30 percent of voters who cast their ballots for former mayor Frank Jordan and businessman Clint Reilly that “we can do business” with Brown, who became Assembly Speaker in 1980, winning 51 to 24, with 28 percent Republican supporters in 1980.

It’s an opportunity for local Republicans to leave the political wilderness with a state party that has been in chaos since the Democratic sweep of November 1998 and has seen local registration decline to under 15 percent. Dividing the party, the local GOP split in the mayoral endorsement. Purists wanted to support a dyed-in-the-wool Republican David Martz. Pragmatists showed they wanted any warm body but Brown by supporting Frank Jordan -- and Clint Reilly -- both, by the way, Democrats.The split endorsement, Bowman suggested, helped Ammiano’s entry into the runoff.

Their support for the incumbent gets them to the table with Brown for commission appointments and policy input. After he became Speaker in 1980, Brown named Assembly Republicans to six chairmanships and 19 vice chairs; he also made concessions on his power as speaker and policies on environment and labor. Brown as Mayor has supported or appointed to City Hall Republican members Annemarie Conroy of the Treasure Island Authority, Benny Yee of Redevelopment, Ben Hom of Public Utilities Commissions and James Fang of the BART Board (the only Republican elected official), who appealed to the party to support Brown.

BROWN’S C-SECTION: Yee, Hom and Fang also formed part of his 65 percent Chinese American voter support, according to the CAVEC/Binder election day exit poll. The moderate-to-conservative Chinese American electorate (18 percent of voters) helped to make the Republican support palatable and has become key as Brown’s overwhelming African American support was diminished by a lower turnout. Meanwhile, Latino voters may have supported Ammiano in his home district, the Mission, and gay/lesbian voters split between Brown and Ammiano.

Brown’s first place showing follows the geographic C pattern, which stands for the mostly “conservative,” “centrist,” and “Chinese” voters, who may be supporting him as strongly as they did Frank Jordan in 1991 and 1995. The C pattern starts northward from South of Market, North Embarcadero and Chinatown, arcs westward into Marina/Pacific Heights, Richmond and Sea Cliff, then moves south into Sunset and West of Twin Peaks, finally returning eastward through Excelsior, Visitacion Valley and Bayview/Hunter’s Point.

Brown’s greatest gains were in high-APA areas: Excelsior, Sunset, SOMA, Richmond, Chinatown and Visitacion Valley where Brown’s voter support increased from 7 to 14 percent from four years ago. Citywide, Brown gained five points over his primary win in 1995 with 39 percent of the vote compared to 34 percent.

TOM TIDAL WAVE: If Board President Tom Ammiano had not entered the race, the outcome of the Central Freeway/Octavia Boulevard and District Attorney might be different. As over 36,450 more Ammiano write-in votes were manually separated and hand counted among 57,657 votes between Nov. 3-5, the District Attorney and Central Freeway/Octavia Boulevard races shifted dramatically. The Elections Department would resume counting remaining votes this Monday.

Of those votes, Ammiano clinched 63 percent, compared to Mayor Willie Brown’s 19 percent, Frank Jordan’s 9 percent and Clint Reilly’s 6 percent. Ammiano blunted what was a near majority for Brown from 48 percent to 39 percent of the vote for first place. Meanwhile, Ammiano closed in with 25 percent of the vote as of last Friday, Nov. 5, clinching the runner-up slot.

The same votes were overwhelmingly anti-freeway (64 to 36 percent margin) and swung what was a 52 to 48 support for the Central to likely defeat of Propositon J by 53 to 47 percent. Those votes also shifted a near tie for Proposition I to a likely reaffirmation for the Octavia Boulevard plan, ahead by 54 to 46 percent. Except for Proposition E, Ammiano’s surge increased victory margins of the other propositions by at least two percentage points.

What was conservative Bill Fazio’s 42-35 percent lead over progressive incumbent DA Terence Hallinan became a dead heat with both virtually tied at 38 percent each. During the Ammiano surge, Hallinan won 44 percent of the votes over Fazio’s 29 percent. Hallinan can win the Dec. 14 contest by mending fences on the left and attracting those who voted for public defender Matt Gonzalez (who garnered 11 percent of the vote) and environmental prosecutor Steve Castleman (who received 10 percent), combined with the “coattails” from his Brown and Ammiano endorsements.

ARE THE BALLOTS BURNING?: With civil servants evacuating City Hall, the embattled Room 48 Department of Elections staff stayed put and guarded the election ballots while fire alarm klaxons blared and strobe lights pulsated last Thursday afternoon.

“We are not leaving,” assured City Attorney Louise Renne outside of Room 48, where her army of over 40 attorneys and investigators were working daily and nightly to manually count the over 50,000 write-in ballots.

Even deputy elections director Theresa Rabe facetiously said, “We’ll burn with the ballots,” as fully dressed sheriffís deputies confirmed that it was a false alarm. Fortunately, the sprinklers didn’t go off while the election ballots were in mid-count.

SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY: A big loser in this election was the Chinese American Democratic Club. It was the only organization to endorse mayoral candidate Clint Reilly. The businessman and former consultant had helped raise CADC “bounty money” to register more Chinese American voters by paying contractors more than $3 per registration on behalf of his candidacy.

CADC was an even a bigger loser. Two-thirds of Chinese American voters ended up voting for incumbent Willie Brown according to Chinese American Voter Education Committee/David Binder election day exit poll.

Reporter Shu Wei Lu of the Chinese language daily, World Journal, reported that CADC claimed to have registered some 9000 voters. Another source said that CADC had raised over $20,000 to register voters.

In an e-mail, Hayden Lee said that was not the case. “I’m not sure what the number is, but I know it is not near 9,000,” he wrote. Lee did not address the question about money.

Refuting the 9,000 count is the Computerized Political Services of Santa Clara, a direct mail firm, which reported that less than 4,500 Asian Americans (of which were over 3,000 Chinese) had registered in the twelve months before October.

Brown should be thanking the club for supporting him indirectly with these registrations. Although it might be a little hard, President Hayden Lee blasted the mayor at its annual Chinese New Year dinner. And in a recent mailer, Lee blamed him for “daily corruption and blatant cronyism,” labeled him a “tyrant” and “dictator” and blamed him for not stopping Chinese American girls from “being violated on buses.” Lee stopped short of calling the Mayor the second coming of Genghis Khan.

YOU CAN QUOTE HIM: Supervisor Leland Yee phoned me up Thursday night and said, “David Lee is an asshole.” The usually urbane Supervisor then told me, “you can quote me.”

Yee said that he had heard that Lee, the executive director for the Chinese American Voters Education Committee, said that Yee had endorsed Board President Tom Ammiano in the runoff election this Dec. 14. For the record, Yee had not made up his mind, and Ammiano said on Nov. 4 that he had not received Yee’s endorsement.

Well, just before Yee’s call, I had conversed with Lee about what Leland Yee should do -- endorse Ammiano or Brown? Nowhere in our conversation did Lee say that Yee had endorsed Ammiano.

In almost a fit of non-partisan revenge, Lee released his exit poll results showing Yee’s low ranking among over 307 Chinese American voters. While 71 percent said that Supervisor Mabel Teng “most represents [the voter’s] views,” Leland Yee received 25 percent and Michael Yaki had 3 percent. The remaining two choices, Alicia Becerril and Amos Brown had 0 percent and 1 percent respectively.

DEWEY WINS: As Mark Twain said, “News of my early demise is a little premature.” That was how the early results of the Central Freeway (Proposition J) and Octavia Boulevard (Proposition I) shaped up early in the evening.

“Can you give me a ride?” asked discouraged bicyclist enthusiast Robin Levitt, proponent of the Octavia Boulevard plan. The 4 a.m. Wednesday morning results showed Proposition J winning by an 53 to 47 margin. The ride he was asking for, sardonically, was one to the Golden Gate Bridge -- where many have lept to their death.

I suggested that he tie onto himself the scale model of the Octavia Boulevard, which he toted around the campaign, to make him sink faster.

On the day after the election, Adam Sparks, spokesperson for Proposition J, sent out a fax at 10 a.m. to Independent columnist Frank Gallagher and declared victory: “In spite of formidable opposition, the freeway proponents prevailed.”

Don’t worry. Both Sparks -- and Levitt -- will continue to live to fight another day, unlike Dewey and Truman, both dead.

THAT’S A LOTTA LIRA: An elections observer asked: What’s Italian for Clint Reilly? Answer: Al Cheechi. With his millions, Reilly spent more than any other candidate in bucks per voter.

Similarly, Castleman, the green candidate running for District Attorney, doesn’t color himself as Solano County’s “environmental prosecutor”, but in the bucks he’s loaned himself, $730,000 according to the Ethics Commission’s Oct. 26 report -- much more than the $400,000 the dailies have reported.