What Happened (and Didn’t Happen) at the SF Mayoral Debate?

Screenshot via Yahoo News.

Each mayoral debate on the campaign road to the People’s Palace has been a slow-moving tornado. One was canceled because multiple candidates called foul, one was hella awkward, and the July 8th debate was perhaps the worst of them all. It was petty and confusing, and it made San Francisco look like crap. They say politics here is like a knife fight in a phone booth, and that’s the kind of campaigning that was on display at the County Fair building.

Viewers at home continued calling out something odd in the Youtube chat: “Where’s Peskin?” The Board of Supervisors president’s absence ached like a knife wound. He sat this one out, as did the original organizers. An hour before the debate, we spoke with Kaitlyn Conway, Peskin’s communications director for the campaign. She explained, “When we originally agreed to this debate, it was through CSFN, the Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods… There was no indication that Stop Crime SF was part of [it]. They just hijacked the debate.” Perhaps they shouldn’t have — the hosts ran a sloppy, rough forum. 

We’ve had plenty of perfectly fine evenings in San Francisco, but this wasn’t one of them. A stab at Peskin in the form of an empty chair with a handwritten sign in red sharpie sat at the end of the second black-draped table. That pettiness meant that our current Mayor London Breed was visibly squeezed between the conjuncture of two tables like an unwanted guest at a thoughtless host’s dinner. Regardless of voters’ opinions of Supervisor Peskin, did his absence warrant the half dozen references to him choosing not to attend? After tonight, who would blame him? 

The morning of the debate, missives flew to-and-fro between Stop Crime SF and Ryan Khojasteh, a candidate for District Attorney who has filed a complaint with the IRS regarding Stop Crime SF’s interesting decision to present a brand-new, never before seen award to DA Brooke Jenkins for being a “crimefighter” to their captive audience shortly before the debate began. Nonprofits like Stop Crime SF aren’t supposed to do anything that looks partial to a particular candidate because of tax law. The award ceremony played out as one would expect, with DA Jenkins being handed what really looked like a recycled firefighter trophy with blue flames. As uninvited candidate Ellen Zhou interrupted, Jenkins continued her planned remarks, ironically saying, “That is our job, to listen to public voices.”

To their credit, each candidate managed to say at least one or two things that made sense, but most of the jokes were childish. The times we laughed:

• Supervisor Safai said to combat climate change we need to plant more trees in historically under-canopied neighborhoods and Daniel Lurie snickered and then explained he’d just planted six in “his alley.” It was a little gauche.
• Mayor Breed’s cord kept falling out of her microphone, and she tongue-in-cheek quoted the exact thing Daniel Lurie said at another debate with a smile. “They just don’t want me to speak.”
• On a question asking if any candidate would make it easier for elderly landlords to evict renters without just cause, Safai said, “I would not open that door up to start evicting people.” Lurie said, “I’m gonna stay seated for this question. It’s a slippery slope.” Mayor Breed kept it even simpler, leaning into the mic and pausing before saying, “Um, no.”

Notably, Mark Farrell, who was mayor for 169 days back in 2018, said that he’d direct SFMTA to stop all capital work and focus on operations. For those who need a refresher, operations are the day-to-day things like driving the bus. Capital is that growing list of everything that needs to be done on what Mayor Breed pointed out is our aging infrastructure. Inexplicably, Mark Farrell later called for more protected bike lanes (a capital idea! Literally.)

There were moments of sharp contrast that astute viewers might feel alarmed by. At various points in the evening, Farrell suggested taking away homeless peoples’ tents and demolishing Class B and Class C buildings to build high rises. Lurie suggested raising fares on public transportation and making city employees come in five days a week. There was no fact-checking, and some of the questions were leading, confusing, or full of falsehoods. Hosts Amber Lee and Frank Noto gave unclear instructions and made arbitrary time checks and decisions on rebuttals that felt unfair and insulting, not to any particular candidate but to the viewers’ intelligence. 

Meanwhile, the simplicity of Peskin’s answers and approach to government were missing. When we asked what they’d be up to tonight, Conway said, “We have volunteers in the front making calls for turnout. We have staff buzzing around for field activities. It’s just business as usual for us.” With all the talk of states of emergency and literal boos and hisses from the unruly audience, that business as usual sounds like a nice contrast.

The next scheduled debate is in September. Maybe someone will drop out by then; if they’re going to bicker, at least it’ll be fewer people on the stage. We just hope the next one is well-run and fair.