SAN FRANCISCO - Bevan Dufty is vying to be San Francisco’s first gay mayor. But the LGBT political structure he was banking on lay in shambles after rival candidates infiltrated and hijacked the two major political organizations.
“It was an underhanded endorsement process” stated Harvey Milk Democratic Club board member and local celebrity, Anna Conda. “I was so disillusioned by what I saw that I nearly resigned”.
According to Conda, rival candidates, including City Attorney Dennis Herrera flooded the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club with new members who were mostly straight campaign volunteers and staff. The new board members then forged a hostile takeover of a routine meeting a full month before the group’s Political Action Committee was to wrap up hearing from all of the candidates and make its recommendations. Amid rowdy chants, cheers and howls of protest an endorsement vote was held.
“Our process was completely usurped” said Conda. “It was very hostile. One of the leaders [of the coup] openly said ‘I never come to these meetings but I’m here to push this through”.
Dufty, a moderate, was certainly no shoe-in for the progressive Milk endorsement. Still many had reason to believe he would be warmly embraced by the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club, where he had been a member for 18 years. Several board members of Alice, the city’s oldest LGBT political organization, spoke to the Vital VOICE on the condition of anonymity.
Like Conda, they described the manipulation and intimidation around the endorsement process. “It was really awful. There were backroom deals, and tears were shed” said one board member.
Dufty vowed to overturn the PAC decision and waged an intensely personal campaign to convince Alice members to vote for him. Dufty sent out an email titled “Unbought and Unbossed” and on the day the full organization voted he held a rally outside.
“He handled himself with class” said a member. “He kept his campaigning outside, unlike Herrera and his protégé Scott Weiner, who stood on each side of the door with clipboards, watching everything.”
Alice members who accepted the PAC decision placed their ballot in a “Yes” box, and those who didn’t placed there ballot in a “No” box, so there was nothing secret about it.
Despite everything, Dufty still has a shot- and he certainly hasn’t put all his eggs in the LGBT basket. He’s a father and has been campaigning on making the city more family friendly. He’s also run impressive ads about improving mass transit.
Under the city's ranked-choice voting system, voters can pick a first, second and third choice among the 16-people running to be mayor—which has the potential to produce a winner that has the most second or third place votes.
Many are still despondent that the community couldn’t pull together for Dufty. The last Alice Board members I spoke with lamented that the most embarrassing part of the group’s history has been repeated.
“Alice made the same mistake it made when it didn’t endorse Harvey Milk, practically 40-years ago to the day.”
BY: CHRIS ANDOE – Vital VOICE West
