Purely Personal Reaction to the Dems Victory

What I am dreading, more than almost anything the Democrats might actually do, is reading and hearing about "San Francisco Liberals" now that Ms. Pelosi is the Speaker-Apparent.

Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer are not San Franciscans. Not really. They both are products of the East Coast.

Dianne Feinstein and SF Mayor Gavin Newsome are.

While Mayor Newsome supported gay marriage, he also supported keeping JROTC in San Francisco public high schools. When the School Board voted to eliminate JROTC, Mayor Newsome commented that they just made it more difficult to keep families in San Francisco. (Out-of-reach home prices have something to do with it, too!)

Senator Feinstein understands San Francisco's military heritage and that having a military is essential to the country's well-being. While mayor, she reinstituted Fleet Week. She tried to have the USS Iowa anchored at SF as a history museum.

Yes, San Francisco is, at its heart, a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat-and-Labor-Union town. And, like many cities, it was at once blue-collar and ultra-rich. That began to change in the '60's and '70's when San Francisco eliminated residency requirements for its civil servants. Police officers, fire fighters, teachers, even letter carriers no longer lived where they worked. Yuppies and "Guppies" moved in and they did not have children. People had "lifestyles" instead of lives.
At one time the Board of Supervisors were elected at large, which meant they had to appeal to those who lived in the Castro, the Sunset, the Mission, the Western Addition, Chinatown. Now they are elected by district and consequently their politics is driven more by identity than by an overarching concern for the welfare of The City.

The Navy closes Hunter's Point shipyard? Good--we don't want the monstrous, beastly military there anyway. Forget that hundreds of skilled blue-collar jobs (which paid well) disappeared. The Army closes the Presidio? That's great. We can use the prime real estate and buildings as "study centers" for folks like George Lucas and Mikhail Gorbachev. And we need the open space--even though the kids living in Hunter's Point or the Bayview or the Tenderloin can't get there to enjoy it.

A Christian Evangelical group held a rally at AT&T Park. During the rally, they preached about the evils of the homosexual lifestyle. A Supervisor protested, "This isn't what San Francisco is about! We're about tolerance! We're about freedom!"

One Supervisor disagreed: Michaela Alioto. She pointed out that "tolerance" means that even opinions you disagree with can be heard. Yep, she's another native.