The former speaker prosecutes a grudge.
The former speaker prosecutes a grudge.
A merica’s best minds are currently sifting through the aftermath of the results of Wisconsin’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, asking how it all went wrong for Francesca Hong. As I am not among them, I thus feel empowered to duck away from the crowd for a brief safari to a place that Republicans rarely pay much attention to, if any: San Francisco. You ever see that film Gorillas in the Mist? Grab your khakis and Wellington boots: It’s time for an excursion into progressive primatology, as we journey to the jungles of the deepest Bay Area to explore the surprisingly spicy race in California’s eleventh district to replace the all-powerful former speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.
As you all know, Pelosi has represented San Francisco in the House of Representatives since 1987. (Her district is almost entirely co-terminous with the city.) She was always untouchable in the seat — the story of how it got passed down over the years to her is its own California political legend — and her position was beyond question after rising to the top of Democratic House leadership. So ambitious city pols have had to bide their time, as they eye the aging party leader like vultures, waiting for her to retire. (She has taken her sweet time, continuing to serve two terms in the seat after handing the leadership position over to Hakeem Jeffries — and there may have been a stubborn calculation behind this, as we shall see.)
No one has been waiting longer, or more eagerly, than San Francisco’s current state senator, Scott Wiener. If his name is already familiar to you, then that is a comment in itself on how successful Wiener has been as a mere state-level politician at capturing national attention — most of it negative, and driven by Fox News–type outrage clips over the years — for his strident LGBTQ activism in the California legislature. (Among his greatest hits: SB 239, reducing the penalties for knowingly exposing a sexual partner to HIV without his knowledge and consent.) But as they say, any publicity is good publicity, just so long as they spell your name right (it’s Wiener, not Weiner).
And ever since Pelosi announced her retirement, Wiener has aimed straight for Washington, D.C. Getting into the race almost instantly, Wiener immediately began using his connections with the pro-development community in San Francisco, as well as his LGBT celebrity, to amass an enormous $4.5 million war chest in the race to replace Pelosi in California’s eleventh. Most conservatives I speak to, aware only vaguely that their hated culture-war bogeyman “won” his primary in early June, think he’s headed to Washington already as a political celebrity.
And I am increasingly certain he’s going to lose. California has a top-two primary, and this year Wiener won’t be facing the sorts of cream-puff Republican candidates that Pelosi used to draw in her reelection campaigns; he will be facing Connie Chan, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, whom he defeated in round one with only 41 percent of the vote to her 30 percent. Third-place candidate Saikat Chakrabati (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s former chief of staff, to give you some sense of his factional sympathies) has thrown his endorsement behind Chan — and presumably a significant portion of his 18 percent share of the vote as well.
Several different forces within the Democratic Party are converging upon Wiener, combining to deny him victory in November. As odd as it must seem to conservatives, Wiener has consistently been portrayed as the “right-leaning” candidate in this race because of his support for YIMBY policies. But perhaps the most powerful force of all behind his troubles is Nancy Pelosi herself.
In a complete surprise, Pelosi endorsed Chan, boosting her securely into second place over Chakrabarti. Now she is mobilizing her enormous political network on Chan’s behalf to defeat Wiener. That is real organizational muscle. Why such hostility toward Wiener, whose policies are otherwise quite similar to hers?
Perhaps it’s because Pelosi always had different plans for this seat — and she very much thinks of it as her seat, to be dispensed with to a deserving party as she sees fit. Pelosi long believed that her daughter Christine Pelosi was the proper heir-apparent: Rumors about Christine running for “the family seat” have circulated for well over a decade and a half; they came to a head after Nancy stepped down from leadership. But there Wiener was, during all those years, with his naked ambitions, to quietly warn Pelosi that if she wished to install her daughter in her seat, then good luck: It would not be a coronation.
Rather than face the obvious “nepo-baby” accusations and a primary where her insider privilege would likely backfire against her, Christine decided she would run for State Senate instead as consolation prize — she is in fact seeking the seat Wiener is vacating. (“I like the thought of forging my own path,” she lied.) The Chan endorsement is her mother’s way of turning the screws: replacing Wiener in his seat with her daughter, then tanking him in his bid to replace her. You have to respect the spite of it all. From hell’s heart and for hate’s sake Nancy stabs at thee, Scott!
I think Wiener’s loss is assured, regardless of what the polls currently say. (As it happens, they show Chan leaping into a tie with Wiener, with plenty of undecideds left.) He is now being squeezed on both sides: by the DSA progressive types once associated with Chakrabati — who are currently baiting him over Israel as a pretext for a deeper hostility to capitalism — and by the Establishment itself as represented by the forces of Pelosi. All the money in the world won’t save him from the fact that all sides have channeled their discontent into his opponent.
Since I am a mere visitor to this dense urban jungle, I am not fully familiar with the mysterious ways of San Francisco Democrats. Perhaps there is some deeply personal bad blood between the Pelosis and Wiener, or perhaps he just stood inconveniently in the way of their dynastic plans. But that’s what’s so fun about these occasional anthropological jaunts to Blue Country — I don’t have to care! Nobody emerges from the fog of San Francisco spouting sane political ideas, after all. (Ask Gavin Newsom.) I just enjoy watching the progressives in the mist, as they form different tribes to pound on one another.