By Kim Geiger
Though incumbent Mayor Gavin Newsom is expected to have a cake walk to re-election Tuesday, the 11 challengers hoping to unseat him have done just about everything to try to keep the race interesting.
Newsom has kept his distance from the eccentric crowd, which gathers outside City Hall every Friday evening to debate the issues in an informal forum that looks more like a circus. Over the 12 weeks of the campaign, his opponents have formed a friendly coalition — competing against each other while subscribing to the group-wide mantra, “Anyone But Gavin.”
After each debate, the candidates walk down to Temple Bar, a nearby watering hole, where unexpected friendships have emerged.
“There’s definitely a spirit of camaraderie amongst nine or 10 of us,” said candidate Josh Wolf, who originally proposed the collaborative campaigning tactic the candidates have embraced. “We’re more powerful working together than we are apart.”
And together, the group is as diverse and eccentric as the city it wishes to represent.
There’s Wilma Pang, a Chinese music teacher; “Chicken” John Rinaldi, a self-described “showman” known for his affiliation with Burning Man, and Josh Wolf, a 25-year-old freelance journalist who was jailed last year for refusing to give authorities footage of a San Francisco protest.
Ahimsa Porter Sumchai, whose resume touts years of medical service in the city’s Bayview neighborhood, is perhaps one of the more mainstream candidates. But even Sumchai, a reserved and issues-oriented candidate compared to the rest of the field, has a playful side — the 55-year-old physician dressed in leather for last Friday’s debate in the Castro.
Michael Powers owns a sex club in the city, says he once spent three years as a woman, and announced Friday he’s pursuing a sex change. Harold Hoogasian, an Armenian flower shop owner and coffee farmer, is the most conservative of the group — and he plays the part, decked out in a suit and tie while smoking a cigar with opponent H. Brown, an arts and politics blogger known for his inflammatory speeches.
“Grasshopper” Alec Kaplan, whose speeches are frequently interrupted for a hefty drag off his ever-lit joint, drives a purple minivan taxi for a living — the taxi is also his home. And George Davis, a nudist who says he’d make Golden Gate Park clothing-optional if elected, debates in the buff every Friday despite frequent harassment from the city’s cops.
The other three candidates, Newsom, Quintin Mecke and Lonnie Holmes, have stayed away from the collaborative — a campaigning tactic that originated last year during the campaign for supervisor of District 5.
Mecke is program director for the Safety Network Partnership, which promotes public safety and community responses to crime and violence; served on the San Francisco Civil Grand Jury and currently serves on the Board of Directors for CounterPULSE, an organization dedicated to the arts.
Holmes, a San Francisco native, is programs director at the San Francisco Juvenile Probation Department and guest lecturer at UC Berkeley. His resume touts years of public service, from coaching football for the S.F. Jr. 49er Pop Warner Football League to raising funds, toys and other donations for low-income families during the holidays.
Despite the refusal of Holmes, Mecke and Newsom to participate in their collaborative, the nine candidates who gather weekly outside City Hall say they’ve had a blast working together over the past few months.
“We hang together despite our own campaigns,” said Pang, 66. “Grasshopper even gives me rides.”
Hoogasian and Powers, the two Republicans of the group, said they respect all the candidates and feel the media hasn’t taken any of the nine seriously enough.
“I’ve found that these people are people that I would look at for commission appointments,” Hoogasian said. “There’s a lot of great people in this group.”
And Davis agreed.
“These are the inmates of the asylum,” he said, referring to the 1966 French film King of Hearts. “But I’d have to delegate to someone.”
With the help of an audio system mounted to the top of Kaplan’s cab, the candidates spend a couple hours each night discussing how they envision the future of San Francisco, what they’d change about the city’s laws and what they think of the media.
The scene is always boisterous, with added entertainment from write-in candidate Kenny the Clown, who juggles fire sticks throughout the debate and occasionally participates, answering questions pedaling back and forth on his adult-size tricycle. Grasshopper blows pot smoke in the face of the conservative, straight-laced Hoogasian, and Davis occasionally takes his clothes off, just to show he’s serious about promoting free-body culture.
But in the end, one candidate will emerge victorious, and it’s unlikely that candidate will be anyone from this pack.
Until then, the 9 continue to playfully harass Newsom — from a singing telegram Rinaldi sent to the mayor’s office last Friday to this week’s final meeting outside the incumbent’s window, where Grasshopper opened the debate with a guitar performance atop his minivan.
“Legalize prostitution and make Newsom walk the streets,” Kaplan sang to cars passing by City Hall. “Vote for peace, love and Grasshopper.”
