If Daly Doesn’t File Today, Convention Paved Way for Gonzalez

He wasn't able to pull it off last time and he's a much weaker candidate now than he was then (while Newsom is a much stronger candidate).

I think Gonzalez had the votes and probably won the last election. It is well known that he got more votes on election day. Newsom won by a small margin-- with absentee votes. There was much pressure on the Election Department that year because it was notorious for its foul-ups. Think it was totally cleaned up? Think again.

After the election, it was shown that city workers were canvassing for Newsom-- but as usual, the establishment media paid only a cursory attention and did not have the heart, courage, or integrity to dig deeper to see if worse corruption was involved. Vested interests-- the same interests that allowed Newsom to outspend Gonzalez ten to one-- had every interest in making believe that "the system" worked.

Newsom's popularity is also an illusion fostered by those who have a vested interest in holding on to the city's current status quo which favors the most financially well-off.

After 4 years, Newsom has shown his mettle: rather than immediately resigning as a more decent man would have, he allowed Alex Tourk to resign. In San Francisco, it is unlikely that a politician can resurrect a career by becoming "born again"-- but Newsom did the next best thing-- he checked into a sobriety program.

Despite rumblings from the vox populi that Newsom is as nasty a person among his closest aquaintances as a reasonable person could surmise from his worst public actions-- it would be wiser to assume that he is just human like all the rest of us-- no different except perhaps for all the bags of money that help prop him up.

Rather than prognosticate who should be mayor-- those who really care about Newsom, the human being and not the image, should better spend their time explaining why Gavin's own life could take a better turn if he were NOT mayor.

As for making any private or public amends by keeping his office-- forget it-- he cannot catch up to his own best public reputation on behalf of marriage-- when once he, with his private actions, attacked the sanctity of a marriage.

That is the tragic crux of why Newsom deserves a decent challenger and should lose-- saying nothing of the actual state of the city which is becoming less charming and more botoxed (betoxed?) by ever more competitive and clueless marketers and consultants with each passing day.