In a runoff which otherwise amounted to liberal versus liberal, Tom Ammiano's bid to become the first openly gay mayor of a major American city ended Tuesday in a 2-1 loss to incumbent Mayor Willie Brown. Yet it wasn't his homosexuality, which was all but a non-issue in the campaign, which stopped him from toppling his veteran fellow Democrat.
"Every journey starts with a very small step," Ammiano told supporters after the result came in. "And we have started on a very big journey." Ammiano's journey began when he became a write-in candidate just weeks before the November election and surprised the city by beating two more established candidates to force a runoff with Brown, the former Assembly speaker seeking his second mayoral term.
Political analysts say Ammiano, the president of the San Francisco County Board of Supervisors, wasn't done in by his homosexuality but by economics. He may actually have made Brown resemble a conservative, as he advocated a tax on stock transactions, a minimum wage hike to $11 an hour, and accusing Brown of kowtowing to big business.
Brown got support from an otherwise unlikely source - the San Francisco Republican Party also endorsed the mayor along with the city Democratic machine. And analysts say Ammiano may have been done in by his willingness to raise taxes amidst San Francisco's economic boom but he at least forced Brown to pay attention to issues related to those on the reverse of the boom.
With a cap reading "Still Da Mayor" on his head, Brown told supporters he was relieved beyond even their comprehension Tuesday night. "I've been in political campaigns for 35 years. I've been in every kind of campaign that you can think of. This one, however, absolutely takes the cake," he said.
