Chris Daly for Mayor?

It's all about him

​SF Weekly readers might recall the ominous meeting last month when former supervisor Chris Daly vowed to haunt the moderates at City Hall. So it should be no surprise that the temperamental barkeep is now talking about resurfacing in San Francisco politics as mayor.

With no other real progressive candidate jumping into the 2012 mayoral race, Daly claims the job might just be ripe for him. The edgy former politico who owns Buck Tavern bar says that running or mayor is not exactly what he wants to do, but the way the candidate pool is shaping up, it appears, as Daly says, he has no other choice.

Someone must represent the anti-Newsoms of San Francisco.

"I'm an interesting candidate in that, if I ran, the whole race would be about me," Daly told reporters.


And that's just how Daly likes it.

Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi had been "seriously" considering a run for both mayor and sheriff. Now that Sheriff Michael Hennessey has decided against running for re-election, Mirkarimi is more likely to jump into the sheriff's race.

And then there are Supervisors John Avalos and David Campos - the two other progressives on the Board of Supervisors (although David Chiu claims he is progressive). Avalos says he is not running but there has been no word from Campos about whether he's entertaining a bid for mayor.

While tending the bar Buck Tavern on Market Street, Daly acknowledges to the The Bay Citizen that his candidacy would rile up moderates into sheer convulsions.

"There are a lot of Daly-haters out there, and they'll go buck wild with their attacks on me and on my small corner of the city here. I don't think that's my first choice of what to do for progressive politics, but the progressives need to have a big-name challenger in this race, and I have the power," he said.

As Daly famously said before leaving office, it's on like Donkey Kong.

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