Stateside: If you're living in San Francisco…

... be sure to vote Gonzalez on the 9th. All those who vote in San Francisco have a chance to make a difference in the world.

What kind of long-term difference remains to be seen, but the immediate difference will be that a mayor was elected on the strength of his support from Democratic voters instead of on the strength of his support from Democratic politicians.

Which will be a stunning victory for democracy. All across the nation, there'd be a new vibration...

Gavin Newsom, the other candidate in Tuesday's run-off, has a slate of big-name endorsements that, by tomorrow night, might even include President Clinton. Senator Hillary Clinton was on every Sunday morning talk show I saw today, presenting the face of what the Democrats could be if only the middle class will just stick with them.

And the week before, on one of the same shows, an historian commenting on something that had nothing whatsoever to do with the 2000 election suddenly raised the bogey of the country being presently under a Nader administration and a Nader department of justice. Which just goes to show you how seriously Matt Gonzalez's candidacy is being taken at a national level. (In a partisan race, which this isn't, he would be running as a Green.)

Frankly, I don't think Gonzalez stands a hell-dwelling snowflake's chance of winning. How often have runoff elections brought a different result from the one achieved in the first round of voting? Runoffs are simply a costly (but entertaining) sop to the idea that the winner has been elected by a 50 percent-plus-1 majority of the voters.

Then again... it's looking like the first-round winner of the District Attorney's race is about to be defeated by his runoff opponent.

ENDS

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