Mission Local is publishing campaign dispatches for each of the major contenders in the mayor’s race, alternating among candidates weekly until November. This week: London Breed. Read earlier dispatches here.
Mayor London Breed arrived just in time.
Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin was already there, in the audience of several dozen people at the San Francisco Women’s Political Committee annual “Summer in the City” event, held at the Phoenix Hotel in the Tenderloin on Wednesday evening. Several candidates for supervisor were there too, alongside City Attorney David Chiu and California Controller Malia Cohen.
Alondra Esquivel Garcia, the committee’s president and an emcee for the night, had already spoken once, but went on stage again to buy time and keep the 50 to 60 person crowd in place for the mayor. The party had been underway for about 90 minutes, and some members were moving away as the speeches wrapped up, getting back to the chit-chat and light fare from earlier. But Esquivel Garcia began describing the “political home” that is the women’s committee, stalling for time, before spotting Breed in the back.
The mayor entered the hotel’s courtyard, followed by her security detail and two aides. She smiled to the crowd, strolled onstage, and took the mic.
“It is so great to be here with each and every one of you, even some of those people running against me, Supervisor Peskin,” she said, as the crowd laughed and Peskin grinned. Breed spoke about the founding of the club in 2002 and its endurance still, and a November ballot measure she introduced last month to add abortion protections in the city. She called 2024 “not just an important year locally, it’s an important year for the Democratic Party,” and commended the campaigners in the audience.
“To all the folks who are here who are running for office, it takes a lot of courage to step out on faith and to put yourselves out there. I want to say to each and every one of you: Good luck — except for the people running against me,” she said, to more laughs, before exiting the stage after some four minutes and then staying to mingle for a good hour.
The mayor had had a busy day, and was not yet done. She had filmed a morning KTVU interview from City Hall in which she spoke about her virtual meeting with President Joseph Biden the day prior, alongside other mayors (she is supporting his staying in the race); the Grants Pass decision by the Supreme Court in late June allowing for easier clearing of tent encampments (Breed filed an amicus brief in favor of lifting the ban against sweeps without offers of shelter, and the San Francisco City Attorney is working on a legal avenue to deal with encampments now that the injunction against the city has been lifted); and the June declaration that the city had missed its deadline for meeting state-imposed housing goals and would lose approval powers (Breed described the city’s current permitting process as “obstruction, time and time again”).
She had walked with her team through Pac Heights in the afternoon to meet and greet merchants, she stayed a while at the Phoenix Hotel — the legendary rock-and-roll lodging in the heart of the Tenderloin that has seen its share of rock stars — socializing and posing for photos, and she was apparently on to yet another engagement after leaving the women’s event.
She is, as Breed reminded this reporter and as she has said many times during the campaign trail, doing two jobs: Running the city, and running for re-election.
How is she holding up?
“I get seven to eight hours of sleep, I worked out on my Peloton this morning, I think it’s more taxing on my hair, because I’m putting too much heat on my hair,” she said. “But I’m drinking water, I’m getting rest, I’m walking, I’m reading my stuff, I’m moving fast.”
“I got to run the city, and I got to run for mayor,” she added. “There’s not enough hours in the day.”
The courtyard of the Phoenix Hotel at 601 Eddy St. has hosted legendary rock stars like David Bowie and Kurt Cobain, but on Wednesday it was several dozen elected officials, their aides, and other politicos who filled the space. Hotel lodgers dipped their toes into the pool; kids ran around, chased by parents; attendees drank champagne, nibbled on flatbread and pita, chatting about issues from rent control to doula services for Black women.
Breed was one of the founding members of the Women’s Political Committee, which is a PAC that makes endorsements of candidates and spends money to elect them. It is singularly focused on women’s issues.
“I was just kind of a kid, but I was one of the first members and helped to organize it,” Breed said. Long before she was elected District 5 supervisor in 2012, and “before Kamala was even on the scene here,” Breed said she and others got together to push for more women in politics. “We were all young, energetic Democrats who cared about women’s issues, and who cared about getting women elected and appointed to office.”
“It was more social, it was fun,” she added. Breed was in her 20s, a young veteran of the Willie Brown mayoral administration. He was one of the first endorsements the women’s committee made, she said, because of his female hires and appointments. And, back then, she was just a lowly staffer. “We would do mailers and we would go out and do door-knocking and help candidates that we supported, and we became a real force.”
And it still is. Though it spends modestly on candidates — less than half a million locally since 2002, according to city filings, a far cry from the many millions spent by big-money groups across San Francisco in just the last few years — Wednesday’s event was a required stop for several supervisor candidates, and most of the field in the mayor’s race: Peskin arrived early, and both Daniel Lurie and Ahsha Safaí came later.
At one point, Lurie looked around the courtyard and, seeing the small pool off to the side, said that he knew it well: “I’ve been thrown in that pool.” It was for the annual Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation “pool toss” fundraiser. “It was not warm,” he said of the memory.
The Women’s Political Committee endorsements are still open, and the club’s members will vote on whom to back in August. If past spending is any indication, the group’s choice will unlock mailers and campaign literature worth a few tens of thousands, plus the seal of approval itself.
In 2018, when Breed last ran in a competitive race, she nabbed their pick.
Breed, for her part, said she does not care that she is the only woman in the race — “I mean, who wouldn’t want to be mayor of San Francisco?” — and that the election is still hers to lose.
“I think in this field, I’m definitely the force to be reckoned with. And again, it goes back to this organization and many of the people who are part of this organization.”
Poor London. She works SO hard. Don’t forget: Connie Chan, Aaron Peskin and Dean Preston are all actively engaged in doing their jobs as supervisors while legislating, policy making and balancing the budget……..all while running for re election.
Blocking housing and making performative declarations isn’t a real job.
“Blocking housing” ugh, YIMBY morons need to read something real.
The Scott Wiener school of BS : repeat yourself, morons will also.
A huge out of control Municipal Budget, which is facing a hemorrhaging deficit, an exodus of commerce, an anemic police force, and a plethora of scandals within City departments. The erstwhile Mayor and the erstwhile President of the Board of Supervisors allied with a Boss Tweed like Democratic machine. That is the state of City and County of San Francisco.
No wonder then that there is an exodus of families, as reflected
in the shrinking population of the schools, which in 1970 was at
92,000 and will next year be about 45,000, even thought the population
of the City has grown from 720,000 in 1970 to 815,000 as of now.
Breed is so disgusting and shameless. Women and POC should see right through.
All photo op, zero actual interest or real action.
Fire Breed and her “moderate SF” cronies ASAP.