Alex Wright


Citizen Matt

December 7, 2003

Walking up the stairway from the City Hall underground parking garage this afternoon, I found myself unexpectedly immersed in a rally for Matt Gonzalez (San Francisco's upstart Green Party mayoral candidate, and prodigal political protégé of my across-the-street neighbor Tom Ammiano).

As I made my way past the crowd, a woman onstage was exhorting everyone to get out the vote, calling Gonzalez...

"... the candidate of the people, of Latinas, Latinos, of African-Americans, people of color, the homeless, and all the forgotten citizens ..."

Or words to that effect. Looking around at the crowd, I couldn't help but notice how few of said people actually seemed to be in attendance. Instead, I found myself gazing out on a sea of 20- and 30- something - white - faces. Which left me wondering whether a more apt speech might have gone something like:

Bring us your laid-off, your tie-dyed, your disaffected dot-commers, your left-leaning liberal arts grads, your hemp-weaving pesco-vegetarians, your Phish fans..."

Which is not to impugn Mr. Gonzalez, who by all accounts seems to be the genuine article, leftie-ideologue-wise. But where would any respectable leftie candidate be without a passel of children-of-the-Establishment-turned-Sunday-afternoon-radicals?


File under: Personal

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