Mission Local is publishing a daily campaign dispatch for each of the major contenders in the mayor’s race, alternating among candidates weekly until November. This week: Daniel Lurie. Read earlier dispatches here.
At 3 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, mayoral candidate Daniel Lurie’s campaign headquarters is quiet, except for occasional sounds from the playback of the first mayoral debate the night before. Already, the campaign has sent a release declaring that he “dominated.”
“The Instagram reel of him saying other candidates ‘have over 70 years of combined experience’ has one of the highest views!” said Annie Gabillet, the campaign’s digital director, while showing this reporter the video on her monitor.
Seven campaign staffers and a volunteer, mostly young people in their 20s and 30s, are working at the headquarters on Mission Street near 21st Street, an inconspicuous office space behind tinted windows with no campaign signs out front.
It feels like any other ordinary office space: White walls, five gray cubicles, fluorescent overhead lights, a small meeting room with glass windows, a not-so-soundproof booth to take calls or Zoom meetings, a small water cooler, and a bathroom in the back; nothing fancy.
And the decorations? They’re all sports and Daniel Lurie.
In the nine months since Lurie launched his mayoral campaign, some voters definitely feel the candidate’s advertisements are “aggressive,” including a volunteer who said it to Lurie’s face at the BeChinatown night market in May.
Back at the headquarters, there’s only more advertisements. Stacks of flyers are sitting on the window sill ready to be distributed. A big “Lurie for Mayor” sign acts as backdrop,
And to the right is a wall of 20 “Lurie For Mayor” window signs, 12 of them in traditional Chinese. Han Zou, Lurie’s campaign manager, who sits in the cubicle across from it with his two dogs, says Lurie uses this as the backdrop for videos.
There is also a podium for Lurie to host mock debates, preparing for sessions like the one on Tuesday and an upcoming one on Monday organized by the San Francisco Democratic Party.
One sign in the hallway, in particular, is massive.
The candidate, who takes pride in his chairing of Super Bowl 50, has said that his favorite San Francisco tradition is the Giants opening day. Sports flags at the headquarters attest to his interest in sports: 49ers, Giants, and the University of San Francisco’s basketball team, the Dons.
Zou said the headquarters is like a staging ground.
More often than not, Zou said, campaign staffers, volunteers and Lurie himself need to be out and about, knocking on doors, attending events and chatting with voters and businesses.
But one has a good chance of catching the candidate at the headquarters in the morning when he comes in after dropping his kids off at school.
The contender even keeps a change of clothes — a white button-up shirt — hanging in the conference.
On some parts of the walls, there are not just signs and sports, but some footprints from the campaign.
To name a few: A supervisors district map of the city, a Photoshopped image of Lurie wearing a Batman’s mask standing on the street of San Francisco, a March primary voting handout, an $88 donation from the Chinatown Restaurant.
This reporter was surprised to find Mission Local’s cartoon portrait of the candidate and the cartoon for the Mission Local story about Lurie stealing proposition E from his opponent, Mayor London Breed. Both are the work of Neil Ballard.
There is also the “core message,” or Lurie’s mantra when he speaks to voters: Leadership, accountability and results. Some keywords are highlighted in yellow.
Zou said the team is planning to open a field office, which will be designed to be more agreeable and open to the public.
