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: Mark Farrell. Read earlier dispatches here.
Margaux Kelly, one of Mark Farrell’s campaign consultants, held a flash while Farrell posed for a photographer from the San Francisco Chronicle, standing in the sweltering 78-degree heat on a busy Castro sidewalk next to a large truck stationed nearby. Dozens of people streamed by, glancing at the mayoral contender, who stood grinning.
“I was just telling Mark, running for mayor is so glamorous,” said Kelly as the photographer snapped his pictures.
Over the last three months, Farrell has switched out the comforts of corporate and family life for one on the campaign trail — one that, often, is not so glamorous.
Outside of his years in public service — as district supervisor between 2011 and 2018 and caretaker mayor for six months in 2018 — Farrell has spent much of his career in the private sector. In the early days of his working life, he was a lawyer, and later an investment banker. More recently, he has served as the managing director at Thayer Ventures, a venture capital firm he co-founded that invests in travel and transportation technology.
Those offices, at 106 Lincoln Blvd. in the Presidio, are a long way from the Chinatown food bank Farrell visited on Thursday. There, Farrell and his posse of four pitched in for 20 minutes with the dozens of volunteers packing 5,000 bags with donated food items. Evidently, campaign outreach can’t always be done over banquets and dim sum.
Farrell, who had just gotten a lift from his 16-year-old son, arrived wearing business-casual clothing and got to work packing goji berries, glutinous rice flour, and assorted condiments.
“We asked Mark to come in and do his share,” said Kenneth, one of the volunteers on Farrell’s campaign. At least for a little while; barely 20 minutes had passed before Farrell was beckoned to continue to his next stops: The WWII Pacific Memorial Hall down the street, and the nearby Chinese Railway Historical Museum.
At the first, Farrell listened to a volunteer talk about the history of Japan’s invasion of China, while his own staff and volunteers roamed around.
Tagging along with the campaign’s canvassing feels like being a student on a school field trip: You are ushered from one place to another, you are not entirely sure what’s next, and most of the group — bar Farrell, like the teacher on those trips — stay quiet, whispering in the background, seemingly not paying close attention to what’s going on.
Also, at times, the group is kitted out in matching T-shirts.
On Wednesday, Farrell took to the Castro for a merchant walk, something that seems to be a rite of passage along the mayoral campaigns of Farrell and the other contenders seeking small business owners to help root support.
Farrell brought along his entourage: There was consultant Kelly; his campaign field director, Sophie Marie; two reporters; his wife Liz; and his friend, former District 8 supervisor Jeff Sheehy. Another handful of volunteers trickled behind the group along Castro Street wearing bright orange Mark Farrell-branded gear.
Sheehy is no longer in politics, arguably in part because of the reaction to his key vote to install Farrell as mayor in 2018. He made enemies among the city’s moderates, but few friends among progressives for his stance. He has endorsed Farrell in 2024, and spoke highly of him along the walk. When a journalist queried Farrell on his reported past use of the term “family values” — a dog-whistle in the Bush/Quayle years — Sheehy, a married gay man with a child, quickly intervened to state that Farrell stands for all sorts of families.
While Farrell did not have anything to roll up his sleeves for on the Castro walk, he did have his wallet. Along the way, he purchased a couple of bottles of wine at two different liquor stores and a “415” T-shirt for his daughter, who is soon moving to the East Coast to go to Boston College. Farrell’s other children are 16 and 11.
“Are you sure you want the job?” asked the owner of a printing and postal service store, following an introduction to Farrell. “It’s worth fighting for,” Farrell responded, shaking his hand and moving onto the next store.
