Bedlam by the Bay

S.F. Mayor Willie Brown has a 30-percent approval rating. But can anyone knock him out of office?

By Anthony York

Aug 5, 1999 | When Willie Brown took control of San Francisco City Hall in 1995, he became a national media celebrity. The man who once dubbed himself the Ayatollah of the Assembly during his 15 years as speaker earned style points for his flamboyance and quick wit, and the broad coalition that backed him heralded a new cooperation among racial groups, and between business groups and urban reformers. Newsweek paired him with Rudy Giuliani as one of the new breed of take-charge mayors, and a flattering New Yorker profile followed.

But Brown's first four years in office have been a disappointment. The city continues to be plagued by homelessness, the public transportation system -- which he promised to fix in his first 100 days as mayor -- is in a shambles more than 1,000 days later, the city is choking on traffic thanks to nonstop development, and his human rights commission and housing agency are under FBI investigation for possible illegalities in awarding minority contracts. In a recent poll, Brown's approval ratings languished at an anemic 30 percent.

The poll was a good news/bad news affair for Brown, however. The bad news is that his approval rating is 30 percent but he's still leading all potential challengers in early polls, and to date has only one declared opponent.

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Still, a wild cast of characters is flirting with the idea of running against Brown. Final decisions must be made by 5 p.m. Friday. The field of possible challengers includes a brawling, millionaire political consultant, a gay comedian, a Chinese-American career politician and the city's former mayor, Frank Jordan, an Irish-American ex-police chief who saw his career go down the drain when he took a shower with two Los Angeles radio DJs on the eve of the last election.

Political consultant Clint Reilly, the only declared candidate, is also the only wannabe mayor who has not held public office. Instead, he has been a behind-the-scenes man, making his millions as one of the state's most prominent political consultants. But California Democrats most recently remember him as the man who helped Democratic gubernatorial nominee Kathleen Brown squander a double-digit lead against Gov. Pete Wilson in 1994 -- and got wealthy doing it. Brown was eventually trounced by Wilson in the Republican tidal wave of 1994.

Reilly has already spent more than $1.3 million, including $902,000 he contributed himself. Though the war chest is impressive, and Reilly has plenty of his own money for reinforcements, Brown's political consultant Jack Davis promised that Reilly would be "Benihannaed" in the course of the campaign. There's plenty to carve up: Already in California political circles, Reilly's history of domestic abuse is known, though he claims it was related to his drinking before he quit cold turkey. Just a few years ago, he got into a brawl with San Francisco Examiner editor Phil Bronstein, who broke Reilly's ankle in a fight over the paper's political coverage.

Reilly's best hope is for others to get into the race, taking away from Brown's core support among progressives and the city's powerful Asian community, in hopes of squeaking into a runoff against a weakened Brown. And already San Francisco is ripe with anybody-but-Brown conspiracy theories linking the centrist Reilly with politicians on Brown's left in a Faustian political bargain.

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