Election Recap
by Samson Wong

C-SHAPED STRATEGY: To win his 1999 election, Mayor Willie Brown crossed the political and ideological fault lines of San Francisco. Despite being the titular head of the S.F. Democratic Party, Brown may have resurrected the S.F. Republican Party from the political wilderness. Conservative voters who rejected him in 1995 now embrace him. Chinese Americans swung for him after supporting Frank Jordan in 1991.

His victory is truly one of a kind, considering that Brown won neighborhoods he lost four years ago. His 180-degree turnaround can be seen in the 14 San Francisco neighborhoods he won, where over 81 percent of Asian American voters reside.

The liberal mayor won nine conservative/centrist neighborhoods, 70 to 30 percent over Board President Tom Ammiano. However, in 1995, Brown lost the same nine neighborhoods to incumbent Jordan by 58 to 42 percent.

It’s these nine neighborhoods that form the classic C-shaped crescent that hugs San Francisco’s coastal and county lines and represents the political and ideological divide. “C” represents the voters in the neighborhoods: conservative, centrist, caucasian, and people of color -- as in Chinese and African American voters.

They made up 72,000 out of Brown’s 127,000 citywide votes. In San Francisco’s most conservative neighborhood, west of Twin Peaks, Brown nearly doubled his support from 38 percent in 1995 to 72 percent in 1999.

Rounding out the “C,” Brown received 88 percent support in Bayview/Hunter’s Point, Ingleside and Visitacion Valley, where most African American voters reside along with an emerging Asian population.

Brown’s overwhelming support in the 14 neighborhoods offset Ammiano’s victory margins in the progressive east. Brown’s support declined from 71 percent in 1995 to 42 percent outside the “C” crescent.

Brown lost nine eastern progressive neighborhoods which he won in 1995: Civic Center, Haight-Ashbury, Inner Sunset, Noe Valley, North Bernal Heights, Potrero Hill, Upper Market/Eureka Valley, Mission, and Western Addition. Brown lost ground in South Bernal Heights and South of Market.

SWINGER OR BRIDESMAID: In this mayoral race, Asian Americans have graduated from being “best supporting actors” in the city’s political theater to “best actor.” According to Republican political consultant Chris Bowman’s analysis of eight precincts with greater than 40 percent Chinese American vote, Brown got 78.8 percent of the vote, compared to 55 percent in the primary.

Meanwhile, Ammiano increased his share of those precincts, going from 11.3 percent in the primary to 21.2 percent in the runoff. Bowman’s analysis reaffirmed a Nov. 2 election exit poll conducted by the Chinese American Voters Education Committee and David Binder Research, in which over 300 Chinese Americans voted 77 to 8 percent for Brown over Ammiano.

What’s not in question is that the API vote will grow and affect both non-partisan races and partisan races in an open primary. But beyond this mayor’s race, the question is whether Asian Americans will be a “swing vote” as they were in 1991’s mayoral race, or whether they’ll be a permanent part of the Democratic establishment led by Brown.

Being a swing vote may have an advantage that’s analogous to the four candidates trying to sway the Asian American bridesmaid this November. By swinging between a conservative like Jordan (in 1991 and 1995) and a liberal like Brown this year, mayoral candidates may have to win over the Asian American vote with commission appointments and funding. And anyway, being a permanent fixture in the party’s establishment may have no benefit: African Americans, who are overwhelming Democratic (over 70 percent), are stuck in the party’s orbit, declining in political influence.

UGLY TRANSLATION: Hooked on phonics? Well, there were two Chinese character translations of each syllable of Board President Ammiano’s surname. In the official voter handbooks (Nov. 1998 and Dec. 1999), his first two characters were Ah-may, which can be almost translated as “beautiful Asian,” perhaps a subliminal ploy by the official translator to say that Ammiano was the better looking candidate. Ammiano’s Chinese campaign literature changed the first two characters to Ah-mai or “Asian rice,” probably to appeal to our political palates.

UGLIER TRANSLATION: Supervisor Mabel Teng and her former aide, Ken Kong, withstood some punches from an Ammiano supporter. Eric Mar had called the duo “homophobic right wingers” after he read a translation of a Nov. 14 Chinese-language Sing Tao Daily story in which Teng and Kong discussed Ammiano’s lack of credibility in the Chinese community. Mar admitted that he was basing his comments on a “rough translation” of the story.

It parallels a translation skirmish that occurred last year, with Teng’s alleged reference on a Chinese-language radio program of Ammiano as “that homosexual supervisor.” The incident caused much debate on whether the phrase was or was not offensive as uttered in Chinese.

E-mail me at potsticker@prodigy.net or samson@sfindependent.com