Reformers Happily Join the San Francisco Democratic Party Machine

Last Thursday, the Bay Area Reporter revealed that Supervisor Tom Ammiano was running for Assembly in 2008. Mark Leno, the current incumbent, is said be heading up Ammiano’s campaign, and John Burton is allegedly on board. The former School Board member and longtime progressive supervisor is already an electoral lock for the November 2008 race, adding to San Francisco’s trend of virtually uncontested races for major offices. The San Francisco Bay Guardian and many San Francisco progressives once attacked these backroom endorsement deals as the evil work of the infamous “Brown-Burton Democratic Party Machine.” But now that even former insurgent candidates like Tom Ammiano---whose 1999 mayoral run against Willie Brown targeted “the machine”—have been granted entrée to machine politics, San Francisco appears to be entering an era where Democrats are one big happy family. This is good news for Mayor Newsom, who will be the first Mayor since Dianne Feinstein in 1983 who will not face a serious Democratic challenger for re-election.