The Greenberg Brief: Come on, Candidates, San Francisco Deserves Real Debate

There have been two debates in as many weeks, showcasing the top five mayoral candidates vying to lead San Francisco. Two of the four opposing incumbent mayor London Breed are not currently serving in office, namely Mark Farrell and Daniel Lurie. They have an important, unique opportunity, indeed an obligation, to differentiate themselves from the rest of the pack, and to represent the desires of the majority of voters of this city. But in observing their performance during these last two debates, they are failing the task. It’s very disappointing.

It is shocking current mayor London Breed is even in contention for re-election. Her leading the city during the pandemic lockdowns, purposefully pulling a massive one hundred twenty million dollars of police department funding in 2020/2021 to instead redirect it to race-based pet projects of hers, continuing damage to our retail, public safety and tourism sectors, all spell incompetence, spite, and malice. Together with her proposed annual city budget of nearly sixteen billion dollars, her fiscal recklessness shows no signs of abating; she’s got a race obsession, continually pushing funding and grant-making to the city’s African-American population while seeking cuts to other programs. Every few weeks, another nonprofit organization her office funds is exposed for corruption and ineffectiveness. Yet she won’t cancel contracts to such offending NGOs. Mayor Breed is knee-deep in a swamp of misspending, while she pretends crime has gone down. In another town and another time in history, Breed would be forced to resign in disgrace.

Naturally, candidates Farrell and Lurie should be having a field day with this, firing salvos constantly at madame mayor. But they fall short; they are asleep in the driver seat.

This past Monday’s debate, Breed several times claimed overall crime in San Francisco is down to levels not seen for ten years, apart from the Pandemic. Yes, she makes every effort to exclude the incidents of 2020/2021’s statistics, and as ludicrous and shameful her phrasing is, it’s more astounding Farrell and Lurie let her assertion slide.

Clearly, 2020 was a tumultuous year. George Floyd’s killing became the excuse for Breed to pull a massive one hundred million from our city’s police department budget, with no justification. Breed exploited the Floyd event. SFPD was on the forefront of reforms already in place for years, closely following the Department of Justice’s recommendations. In the summer of 2020 Breed vilified the police anyway, as did many elected and appointed city hall officials here, several even calling for total defunding of the police department, while some going as far as demanding removal of police from San Francisco entirely.

We saw what happened next with Breed at the helm: riots, mass lootings, retail destruction, police overwhelmed, and then-DA Chesa Boudin doing virtually nothing to support the enforcement of law. Mayor Breed did little to calm the extremely tense atmosphere around San Francisco, hardly critical of Boudin.

Her current claim crime is down takes a page from disgraced and ousted Chesa Boudin’s tactic of denying statistics and his cherry-picking of data. It got him chastised, discredited, and finally thrown out of office via recall. Mayor Breed’s push to ignore the 2020-2021 data from her current claim crime is the lowest in ten years is manipulative and frankly outrageous.

People got killed in 2020. Is Breed asking voters to just overlook the tragic deaths of Hanako Abe, Elizabeth Platt, Sheria Musyoka, Vicha Ratanapkdee? I personally attended several memorial services and felt the intense sadness of tragic deaths of innocents. Breed’s current comments to whitewash the turmoil of 2020 are a slap in the face to victims’ memories, their families.

Candidates Farrell and Lurie should have slammed Breed callousness immediately.  But as viewers have seen, she has a certain charisma and she has learned, even mastered some say, the art of deflecting criticism – and to turn around and redirect blame at you or on others (including the other candidates as well).

For example, during the first mayoral debate, each candidate was asked to name who their favorite drag queen is. Yes, it should be an irrelevant question, as mayors and city hall officials should instead be focused on fentanyl deaths, the insane annual budget and how to revive our retail sector. But each of the five candidates on stage answered the drag queen question going down the line. Farrell did not have a favorite, and instead repeated the answer from another candidate answering prior. So, at the second debate a few days ago, mayor Breed seized what she saw as a serious transgression (pun intended) and at the right moment, she pounced, cornering Farrell, asked him to name three drag queens. He could not. He responded instead with asserting he knows members of the LGBT community.

Another missed (and miscalculated) opportunity for Farrell. Social Media erupted in reaction, to both Breed’s successful dagger thrown, and Farrell’s poor response to her. Online, many suggestions followed, how Farrell should have responded: “Mayor Breed, please name three victims who’ve died of fentanyl on your streets”, or simply he could have replied how ridiculous and pandering her question was. For me, I would’ve responded with “Mayor, name three ways your reparations plan violates the Constitution and supreme court rulings.”

Yes, we are early in the campaign season. Yes, there will be plenty more debates before November’s election day. But with each missed opportunity to whittle down collectively the credibility of London Breed, the more difficult it will be to beat her at the polls. Her charisma and willingness to stretch the truth when on the debate stage is making it harder to overcome.

After two debates, frontrunner Mark Farrell has much to lose if he doesn’t get his act together. At both debates he appeared tired, his answers mostly weak, he didn’t portray an image of a strong confident leader. He’s got to meet with his advisors, listen to his supporters’ concerns and re-watch recordings of his debate performance to improve. He’s tall, towering over most if not all other candidates. He was the first to speak last Monday, and when delivering his opening statement, he neglected (or forgot) to stand up, delivering his pitch to the audience while seated. He chooses not to wear a tie when the rest of the gentlemen do. He needs to polish his image and speaking clarity and mannerisms. Voters are pulling for him, wanting to support him, but her has work to do. Stay tuned as the next debates are scheduled and I’ll update again.