By WILL HARPER
Supervisor Chris Daly says he is once again considering running for mayor now that Matt Gonzalez has decided not to challenge incumbent Gavin Newsom in November.
“At this point,” Daly said in a phone interview, “if there were a bigger name challenger to Newsom in the fall it would be me.”
Back in June, Daly said he wouldn't run, citing family reasons. He and his wife are expecting their second child later this year.
But Daly says things changed when Gonzalez, who nearly beat Newsom in 2003, announced he wouldn’t run last week. Gonzalez, a Green Party member, was widely considered the best candidate to mount a challenge to Newsom from the left. Without a viable progressive contender in the mayor’s race, Daly says, “I’ve obviously been talking to close friends and allies about what that means for us.”
Daly says he and his allies are debating whether it would be better for the city’s progressive movement for him to run against Newsom or to just sit it out and focus on maintaining the leftist majority on the 11-member board of supervisors in 2008. Several supervisorial seats are up next year.
Daly, who’s been getting ripped in the press for his public spats with colleagues, concedes he may not be the most ideal candidate, although he believes he’d be the best mayor. Asked if he was worried about whether Newsom and his financial backers would smear him if he ran for mayor, Daly said, “That would be a certainty, but they’re going to smear me even if I don’t run.”
So what are the chances the guy runs? Daly definitely doesn’t make it sound like it’s a sure thing. “It’s a possibility,” he allowed, “I don’t know that it’s likely.”
One thing is for sure: With the filing deadline looming, we'll all know if he's a candidate or not at 5 p.m. this upcoming Friday.
Go Chris! Please keep standing up to the powers that are trying to pervert this City into a caricature of LA or somewhere. Someone needs to stand up to Newsom!
Posted at: August 7, 2007 3:59 PM