It’s not particularly a surprise, but Gavin Newsom endorsed Rob “who?” Black for District 6 Supervisor yesterday. You can read Pat Murphy’s account of the event at the Sentinel, and Randy Shaw’s take on Beyond Chron.
As I said yesterday, it’s becoming clear that the Big Business types are not going to stand aside and let Chris Daly get re-elected without a fight. Between their dodgy push polling and Newsom’s endorsement of Black, it seems that significant downtown money is being mobilized to take Chris on.
The anti-Daly effort is complicated, however, by the fact that Chris’s record actually represents the interests of his constituents. I think Chris’ll win again, but it won’t be without an onslaught of incensed editorials and misplaced innuendo.
July 31st, 2006 at 5:17 pm
I saw this in this morning’s Examiner. (btw, I’d really appreciate it if the delivery people wouldn’t throw it into our flowers, but I digress.) It’s an interesting play on Newsom’s part. Not quite as smooth as the whole Toby Hall affair, but you can’t pull that triple bankshot off every time, can you? It’s clear that Newsome would dearly love to another solid vote, and Black appears to be just that. He’s Michela Alioto-Pier’s aide, and a victory after this endorsement would likely lead to a great indebtedness on his part towards the Gav.
I like Chris, I really do, he’s a really nice guy who has just happened to make more than a few enemies. I agree that he’s still a big favorite, but it’s hard for a lightning rod like Daly to sail through an election. A little GOTV will go a long way for him…
July 31st, 2006 at 5:48 pm
Well, yeah, Gavin obviously hopes that Black gets elected, and will then owe him. But so far, at least, Newsom (although tremendously popular) has not shown much in the way of coattails. So it’s not really clear how much his endorsement really means. Two years ago, his endorsee in District 5, Rescue Muni’s Andrew Sullivan, got crushed. And D6, South Beach excepted, isn’t really Gavin territory either.
It appears, though, that Black will probably have resources behind his campaign. He got the limit from at least one big landlord group, and somebody’s paying for the push polling I mentioned earlier.