Not everyone shares that view.
"I would say there is quiet disappointment at his prioritization," says Barbara Meskunas, president of the Coalition of San Francisco Neighborhoods, many of whose members are in the more conservative precincts west of Twin Peaks. "The sense I get on the street is, 'Why is he clowning around with stuff like that when there's work to be done?' I still see the homeless guy, and I haven't heard much about housing. And where are the jobs?"
Courtesy of AP/Wide World Photos
Power Couple-in-Waiting? The mayor and wife
Kimberly Guilfoyle Newsom.
Related Content
More About
But not even she suggests that Newsom is unpopular. "Oh, no. Most of the people I know are so grateful that he doesn't seem to be Willie [Brown]-by-proxy that they're more than willing to give him a chance."
Meanwhile, in progressive circles, where it seems only yesterday that Gonzalez was the undisputed Golden Boy, Newsom is enjoying a wave of newfound admiration that no one could have predicted. "There's a palpable difference in the way the mayor is perceived in the gay community," says Assemblyman Mark Leno, whose district includes the Castro. "It isn't even so much the issue [of gay marriage] that has turned gays and progressives on to Gavin, but rather the realization that the mayor would stand up for something he believes is right, even when it doesn't appear to be the most popular thing to do."
Even some Gonzalez confidants are glowing in their praise. "The kudos Mayor Newsom [has] received are deserved," says ex-Gonzalez campaign manager Ross Mirkarimi, who just months ago was doing everything possible to prevent Newsom from capturing the Mayor's Office.
If someone last year had to guess which of the several candidates for mayor would take the unprecedented step of issuing marriage licenses to gays and lesbians, "Newsom wouldn't have been at the bottom, but he certainly wouldn't have been in the top two or three," says Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. For her, Newsom has already cemented his place as a civil rights hero, regardless of how the issue plays out in the courts or the political arena. The mayor's unexpected stand on gay rights marked the first time that many progressives who were enamored of Gonzalez had bothered to give Newsom a serious look. And so far, they like what they see.
"I didn't vote for [Newsom] and don't even know anyone who did," says Gretchen Lee, who rushed to City Hall with her partner to be among the first several dozen couples to wed on Feb. 12 after hearing what the mayor had done. Lee and her friends supported Gonzalez. Would she vote for Newsom now? "If I had to vote tomorrow I would definitely vote for him."
Gavin Newsom clearly has the look of someone who intends to be a player for a long time, and on his own terms. As if to demarcate himself from his predecessor, he wasted no time in jettisoning several of Willie Brown's favorites, including former Police Chief Alex Fagan Sr. and port commissioner Doug Wong. Within his first week in office, he was shadowboxing with SFPD homicide investigators, showing up at murder scenes to signal that he meant business about improving the Police Department's crime-solving capabilities, and raising its profile in the violence-plagued Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood. He has shot hoops with street kids in the Bayview and packed department heads into a van to conduct an impromptu pothole tour.
Since plunging into the gay marriage issue, he has had a phenomenal run of A-list television appearances, on 60 Minutes, Nightline, and Good Morning America, among others. Despite his new-boy status as mayor, it hasn't taken him long to warm up. "He's a natural," says one political consultant who doesn't pretend to know Newsom's intentions, but wouldn't be surprised to see him succeed Pelosi in Congress in seven years, if he manages to win a second term as mayor.
He could also go the Statehouse route, running for the state Senate, say, from his Pacific Heights district.
Or, some suggest, there could be a JFK-like ascent to the governor's mansion or the U.S. Senate. Sure, Newsom picked a touchy social issue with which to make his first big splash. But if Kennedy could combine charisma, vigor, and social activism with a "tough" anti-communist stance to win the White House at an incredibly young age, then there are those who believe that a politician sharp enough to ride an anti-homeless stance into City Hall, and immediately glom onto a gay marriage issue in which he's already being hailed as a civil rights hero, could accomplish something similar.
After all, Newsom has Kennedy-level financial backers in millionaires Gordon Getty and Warren Hellman. He has the Kennedy looks. He even has the Kennedy-level wife, in Kimberly Guilfoyle Newsom, the svelte, erstwhile lingerie model and ex-deputy district attorney now beaming nightly from New York as a Court TV analyst and CNN commentator.
And Gavin has something that may be more valuable than anything else in 21st-century American politics -- buzz. "When it comes to Gavin Newsom," says Rosenberg, the Democrat groomer, "I wouldn't set limits on potential."
