Say it ain't so...Gavin.

I checked in for local news on Sfgate.com today, and was greeted by this bombshell: San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom apparently had an affair with the wife of his good friend and campaign manager, and on Thursday was forced to own up to it and beg contrition. What follows in the story, if you care to read it, is an analysis of what effect this may have on his re-election campaign for this year, as well as his hopes for attaining higher office in the future. Also some irrelevancies about how conservative commentators are going to pin this on "San Francisco values" and use it to make Nancy Pelosi look bad (I despair of the Chronicle sometimes).

The truth is, even though I grew up just across the Bay from San Francisco, in Berkeley, the city that even SF residents think is a bit loopy, I really don't know how this is going to play for Newsom's chances for re-election. Okay, so it's obviously not going to help matters, but there is some truth to the traditional “San Francisco values” smear. The counterculture winds blow strong there still, and in stark defiance to the conservative sexual mores that still dominate public life in much of the rest of the country (and there are of course other obvious exceptions beyond SF), there’s something that goes beyond simply tolerance for thumbing your nose at it all. Clinton, after all, is beloved in the Bay Area, and it’s not for the moderate, DLC-type policies he followed while President. He’s a free spirit, simply put, and we love him for it. (As a side note, that’s the political tradition I come from, and perhaps it’s no coincidence that the two presidents I admire the most are Kennedy and Clinton.)

But that said, and as the Chronicle rightly notes, what stinks here is not just that the mayor had an affair, but that he had an affair with the wife of his campaign manager and friend. The element of betrayal comes into play, of a real breach of honor that goes way beyond simply nookie on the side. That’s the idea, far more than the basic fact of the affair, which will not sit well with SF voters and may doom him down the road if he ever hopes to pursue the governorship or a Senate seat. What’s more, this all comes in the midst of what can be described charitably as a near-breakdown for Newsom as both a mayor and a man. There’s a several-car pileup on the highway, and into it comes plowing an 18-wheeler. Even San Franciscan tolerance has been tested by the Newsom’s behavior lately; as the Chronicle puts it, “…the scandal came on the heels of headlines that have put an unflattering spotlight on Newsom's personal life -- from coverage of a messy divorce to public displays of affection and dalliances with a series of girlfriends, including a 19-year-old restaurant hostess, to sightings of the 39-year-old mayor drinking at bars and bistros across the city.” Yes, you read that right. If this man isn’t the second coming of JFK then I don’t know who is.

Now, I haven’t been following San Francisco politics very closely for the past couple of years, but the comments in the Chronicle article about a general sense of drift and inattention emanating from the mayor’s office square with my own perception of recent events, particularly the ongoing saga of the Niners’ plans to move to Santa Clara. At the moment, Newsom does not strike me as a mayor who is effectively deploying the powers he has to influence events and shape the city agenda, to put it mildly. The focus, desire, and ambition just seem to be draining away.

I’m sure there are many people in the Bay Area and, for that matter, across the country who are welcoming this development. They come from across the political spectrum, primarily on the left in the Bay Area and on the right nationally. You may have guessed by now that I don’t share that sentiment: the truth is, Newsom is one of the few politicians that I’ve really admired and liked in recent years, and frankly, I’m willing to forgive him a lot. As I note earlier, I tend to forgive easily when it comes to the personal foibles of politicians.

What makes me like Newsom, even to the point that I’m still inclined to think well of him after this really, really lousy thing he’s done?

A bit of background: Back in 2003, Newsom, still a young Supervisor (the SF city council is the Board of Supervisors), was the heir apparent to Mayor Willie Brown, the gleeful imp who had dominated SF politics (and some years prior to that, California politics as Assembly Speaker) for two terms that many believed were plagued by corruption. Newsom hadn’t been born into money, but he had befriended a young member of the powerful Getty family, and the wealthy SF dynasty essentially became his patron as he moved up in the business world (he was a restaurateur), and then the political world. He was a moderate on the Board of Supervisors, and clashed repeatedly with the dominant progressive faction. Although he seemed to have a sound grasp of policy and a highly reasonable political outlook, economically moderate and socially liberal, I was still a bit skeptical back then about the circumstances of his rise to power and his tight relationship with the Gettys. I was nevertheless greatly relieved when he won a much tighter that expected victory over Green Party candidate Matt Gonzales, the kind of well-meaning San Franciscan of socialist convictions who would have reduced the city to irrelevancy in four years and economic insolvency in eight.

Almost immediately after his inauguration, Newsom made an infamous decision that will forever shadow his reputation and that personally made me prouder to have been born in San Francisco and to have grown up in the Bay Area than I have ever been before or will likely ever be again. Responding to Bush Administration attempts to push a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in advance of the 2004 elections, Newsom decided to begin sanctioning single-sex marriages right on the steps of San Francisco City Hall, a very public flaunting of the national Republican Party and a highly questionable and probably illegal move in regards to the California state constitution. As the Bush Administration forced a confrontation in Congress over the gay marriage amendment, its allies pointed to San Francisco as evidence that altering the Constitution was indeed a step that was justified by a clear and present danger. Meanwhile, in San Francisco itself, thousands of couples, many of whom had been together in marriages in all but name for a decade or more, lined up at City Hall for a simple ceremony that they had hoped for but nevertheless had seemed to be the providence of a distant future. Mayor Newsom presided over many of the ceremonies himself.

There was speculation that Newsom had pursued this policy to outflank his opposition on the left at the outset of his term, and indeed the policy did have this effect. When asked what sort of impact this move was likely to have on his future political ambitions, Newsom demurred; he said he believed that San Francisco views on the issue were the template for national views a decade hence, and that in the long run his initiative would come to be seen as a harbinger of positive developments far beyond the San Francisco Bay Area. At present, it does not appear that Newsom’s prediction will bear out, and I do not think it will be seen as prescient in the time frame of the next decade that currently forms the horizon of Newsom’s political career. Yet given what we now know more clearly about Newsom’s personality and character than we did then, it seems to me more likely that his decision was an impulsive one, compelled by what he sensed was a despicable drift in national politics in early 2004.

That brings me to the reason why I admire Gavin Newsom as a political leader, and why the latest news strikes me as a tragedy on multiple levels. San Francisco and the Bay Area are proud to stand for some of the most attractive and enduring values of the American political tradition: freedom of speech and expression, openness, the desire to help the less fortunate, and above all, tolerance and acceptance of the multitude of differences among individual people. And yet it is also the case that in consistently standing for and espousing these liberal ideals, the people of the San Francisco Bay Area give the appearance of rejecting the values and institutions that form the heart of the conservative tradition in American politics, the tradition that speaks most powerfully to those in much of the rest of the country. The result, of course, is that people in these regions return the favor by denigrating San Francisco and “San Francisco values”. Sometimes, I must add, they have good reason to do so. The recent SF school board decision to terminate the SF JROTC program was pure lunacy, as disgracefully ideological as almost anything the radical right has come up with recently; Newsom, incidentally, vocally expressed outrage, although it seems he was powerless to stop the business from going forward.

As mayor, Newsom has not sold out the San Francisco liberal tradition; far from it, as his actions on same-sex marriage demonstrate. He has also not faltered under pressure from an increasingly reactionary and dogmatic left. What he has tried to do is demonstrate to both San Franciscans and the country as a whole that “San Francisco values” are not inconsistent with America’s most cherished institutions. As the couples who lined up at City Hall for their chance at marriage amply demonstrated, Newsom believes that San Franciscans and their values can at their best reinvigorate key institutions of American life, and that engagement rather than disdainful dismissal is the proper political posture for a San Francisco that wants to remain politically relevant in a nation where the conservative tradition is strong.

I hope to see Newsom carry this idea into a second term as mayor, and beyond to higher office. Yet I now worry that the recent reports of Newsom’s personal failings will not only destroy his promising political career, but will also irrevocably taint by association his public agenda and the beliefs he has espoused.