The Daly Show

He and others fear that without a viable candidate to influence the debate in the upcoming mayoral election, Newsom, who is universally expected to cruise to victory against a field of mostly no-name opponents, will veer to the right during his second term in office. "In 2003, after Matt [Gonzalez] nearly won, Newsom had the incentive to at least give lip service to governing more progressively," Davis says. "That may not be the case the second time around."

It was just such a concern that prompted Daly to call for a so-called Progressive Convention, attended by some 300 people in June, with the promise that, if no recognizable candidate from the left offered themselves against Newsom, he'd do it.

The convention turned into a political version of The Price Is Right, with no progressive standard-bearer willing to "come on down." Daly waited until after it was over to say he wouldn't run because he and his wife are expecting a baby.

Then, with the filing deadline looming and still no recognizable progressive willing to enter, he once again changed course, huddling with supporters to take stock of his chances. In the meantime, progressives had suffered the indignity of seeing one of their own, Sandoval, endorse Newsom. Acknowledging that he may have been "the least preferable progressive challenger," Daly, in the end, folded his cards.

His aim, he says, was to coax a viable candidate into the race. (He has since endorsed advocate for the homeless Quintin Mecke.) "But," he acknowledges, "I probably painted myself into a corner in the press. I was perhaps incorrect in putting myself out there to draw someone else in."

Despite his being the politician that the city's mainstream power brokers like least, even some of Daly's critics use adjectives like "bright" and "talented" to describe him. Aside from Peskin and fellow progressive Tom Ammiano (the board's longest-tenured supervisor, first elected in 1994), Daly, in 6 1/2 years in office, has been responsible for more legislation than any of his colleagues, City Hall observers say.

He wins kudos as a hard worker, boasts a near-perfect attendance record, and, despite his often headline-grabbing escapades, is a policy wonk with a reputation for poring over the minutiae of practically every item that comes before him.

Yet his often-erratic behavior for an elected official, including an altercation with an SFPD cop during a protest at UC Hastings College of the Law in 2002, and famous temper have made him a lightning rod — and some say, easy foil — for political opponents. "The reality is that, while Chris has been quite effective [on the board], he has squandered some of his effectiveness because of his inability to control his emotions," Peskin says.

Although Peskin is still a Daly ally, there are signs that the relationship has frayed. In June, Peskin removed Daly as budget chair (and appointed himself to replace him), saying that Daly's quarrels with Newsom over the budget and other matters had become too personal and hindered his ability to get things done. Daly, in turn, accuses Peskin of cutting a deal with the mayor to oust him, something Peskin denies.

But such dust-ups with fellow progressives aren't to be confused with the continual warfare Daly wages against the mayor, whom the fiery supervisor — whose 6th District includes not only South of Market, the Civic Center, and Treasure Island, but also poorer constituents in the Tenderloin and northern Mission — clearly resents. In Daly's view, the mayor is little more than a symbol of the moneyed establishment who largely owes his popularity to a knack for cherrypicking popular progressive causes.

Although then-Supervisor Newsom endorsed Daly during Daly's first run for office, the bad blood between them precedes Newsom's election as mayor. They often sparred when Newsom was on the board, most notably about Care Not Cash, the homelessness initiative that helped catapult Newsom to the mayor's office, and that Daly ridicules. Insiders recall with bemusement his getting under Newsom's skin by chatting him up, in the manner of a baseball catcher, to annoy and distract him during legislative sessions.

On his "The Daly Blog," which Daly moved off the city's servers in July (and which promises "unedited, uncensored, unadulterated analysis of San Francisco politics"), he is forever mocking Newsom. He chronicles the mayor's every stumble, from his past marital woes and divorce to his more recent alcohol abuse and affair.

The attacks hold little back. In one recent blog post, Daly introduced "Project Chicken Connect," featuring a graphic of the mayor with a chicken beak and deriding him as "an intellectual lightweight who has problems thinking on his feet."