Poets and yogis: San Francisco politics

In other cities, perhaps, these might simply be events on the cultural fringe. Here, they touch the bohemian heart of the city itself, and Gonzalez has struck a chord.

"It's a groovy happening with a purpose," says campaign spokesman Ross Mirkarimi.

Much of Gonzalez's success has come by creating a stark contrast between himself and the high-society Newsom. Gonzalez is the floppy-haired, slump-shouldered champion of the counterculture. He led the charge for the city's new $8.50 minimum wage. He shares an apartment. He used to play bass in a band named after a painter and anti-Nazi activist. And he doesn't own a car.

That's the essence of his campaign: a regular guy trying to take back government for regular people. When he stops by the poetry reading, he tells the standing-room-only crowd in a small college theater, "It's about who gets access and who doesn't. They're scared, not of a Green being elected mayor, but of an honest person being elected mayor."

Indeed, the fact that Gonzalez is a member of the Green Party seems secondary, at best. Part of that is because San Francisco mayoral races are, technically, nonpartisan. But it is also obvious that party affiliation simply doesn't mean much here anymore. No one at the poetry reading denounces Democrats. It's the machine they rage against, and in San Francisco, Democrats happen to be the machine.

It's the sense that "Democrats are too comfortable with power," says Dr. DeLeon. The Greens are casting "the Democratic Party back to its roots. When that happens, the Green Party will have served its purpose."

Yet the race - and party affiliation - does mean something to national Democrats. San Francisco, after all, is the hometown of Sen. Dianne Feinstein and House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, and for years has been perhaps the most reliably Democratic major city in the country. More than 80 percent of voters here, for example, voted against the recent recall of Democratic Gov. Gray Davis. If Newsom were to lose the seat, particularly after Gray Davis's debacle, it would be a major embarrassment to the Democrats.

To avoid that, the party last week dispatched former Vice President Al Gore to bolster Mr. Newsom in San Francisco. But this campaign seems to be working on a new political calculus. To some liberals here, Gonzalez represents a choice that the Democrats haven't given them for years.

"I've never had a candidate that I was excited about that had a chance of winning," says Hallie Montoya Tansey, a 23-year-old former public school music teacher who became a Gonzalez volunteer after last month's election. "Newsom represents the kind of Democrat that I've always been forced to vote for."

On a national level, Mr. Dean is riding the same sentiments. By standing up to President Bush on issues from gay rights to the war in Iraq, he has given liberals a strong alternative to the more centrist Democratic Party created by Bill Clinton. By voting for Gonzalez, supporters hope they, too, are making a national statement.

"San Francisco has an opportunity to stand up and stem a tide of neoconservatism," says Taylor. "For a lot of us, it's a symbol of resisting." And through Gonzalez, many of those who would normally turn to civil disobedience to show their resistance are finding an unexpected outlet. Says volunteer Chance Martin: "It's a unique and wonderful thing that instead of taking to the streets and scaring Mom and Pop, all these people are coming together to do something positive."

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