Just bleh

I will agree with Gavin Newsom on one thing: as he said in a Times article on Sunday, only in San Francisco could someone who's pro-choice, pro-gun control, pro-same sex marriage, and pro-legalized medical marijuana be considered right-wing.

Of course, it's not Newsom's stance on those issues that makes him seem like a relative Republican. It's his exceedingly slick, pro-business, anti-homeless, Willie Brown, Jr., Jr. attitude that makes me squirm.

The same goes for Kamala Harris. It's a mark of pride that San Francisco has the state's first African-American DA, but that progressiveness is all but eradicated by Harris' creepily perfect politician's demeanor (already!). Listening to her evade or obfuscate on every last question when she was a guest on Forum last week was maddening. I can't imagine it'll get better.

We are, of course, nowhere near as screwed on the city level as we are on the state level (impressive: Schwarzenegger breaks his "won't touch education" campaign promise within a month of taking office). San Francisco will continue to pull between the latter-day yuppies and the latter-day hippies, just as it has for the past several years. And we're still as far left as it's possible to be in the US.

But we had the chance to get beyond the cronyism and false compassion of the Brown administration, and we didn't take it. Not terribly surprising, to be sure, but grumblingly disappointing nonetheless.