Supervisor Chris Daly
Photo by Luke Thomas
By Luke Thomas
April 13, 2009
San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly is making a move to take progressive politics inside the California Democratic Party apparatus, Fog City Journal has learned.
The sitting three-term Supervisor, who terms out of office in 2010, announced last week he is running for Region 4 Director of the California Democratic Party, a volunteer position currently held by August Longo since 2003.
“While I may be best known for getting things done in San Francisco’s rough and tumble political world,” Daly wrote in a letter to 140 delegates asking for their votes at the upcoming California Democratic Party Convention in Sacramento, “my roots are in community organizing.”
“Like Obama’s South Carolina operation,” Daly continued, “we here in Region 4 have the ability to organize the structures for change that can be replicated across the state of California.”
Regional Directors assist Statewide Officers in the maintenance and development of the Democratic Party organization within their respective regions, according to the California Democratic Party website. The position also provides leverage over Party organizational outreach operations.
California Region 4 includes Assembly Districts 12, 13 and 19, encompassing the City and County of San Francisco and most of San Mateo County.
Daly, who considers himself a “movement candidate” with social justice as his ultimate political goal, said pursuing the position of regional director is, for him, “the next logical step to take” after successfully wresting control of the Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC) from Party moderates.
Daly said Longo’s lone dissenting vote against a DCCC resolution calling on Mayor Gavin Newsom to “redirect law enforcement efforts away from criminalizing the immigrant community,” was not a “deciding factor” in his decision to run against Longo, though he said Longo’s voting record has been aligned with “a more conservative faction” on the DCCC.
Reacting to the news of Daly’s challenge, incumbent Longo told Fog City Journal: “There are 140 delegates and I have a personal relationship with almost every one of them. I work with them on a daily basis every day.”
“I stand on my record and I wish [Daly] all the luck,” he said, adding, “I think I’ve done a good job and I will continue to do a good job.”
Daly’s letter to delegates:
Last year we elected a community organizer to the White House. But we need good community organizers at every level of our Party. That is why I have decided to run for Region 4 Director of the California Democratic Party, and that is why I am asking you for your support.
While I may be best known for getting things done in San Francisco’s rough and tumble political world, my roots are in community organizing. I moved to San Francisco as an organizer to work on issues of homelessness and poverty. Over the next 8 years I organized on San Francisco’s streets and in residential hotels –in working class, immigrant neighborhoods and communities of color– on issues of affordable housing, tenants rights, social services, immigrant rights and police accountability. Make no mistake about it, as tough as my current job is, it’s never matched the challenges I faced as an organizer on some of the toughest issues in communities forgotten by the powers that be, or even worse, communities under siege.
Years of community organizing didn’t just ground me in my political work, it led me to the Obama for America campaign. Two years ago I began to notice that some of the best young organizers in our City were leaving for other parts of the country to join the campaign. As a movement politician, I felt compelled to follow their lead. I realized that while Obama was an impressive candidate, the real beauty was in the Obama organization that laid the foundation for a widespread movement for change.
This movement, that we all became a part of at some point along the way, didn’t just deliver the Presidency to a progressive Democrat, it gave us an opportunity to continue the politics of hope and change. But like any movement built around a candidate, the challenge of keeping it going to affect lasting change over time is even greater than the challenge of winning an election. The architects of the Obama operation seem to understand this. They have launched Organizing for America through the Democratic National Committee to help implement an agenda of change in Washington.
While change has become a buzzword of nearly every Democrat, the commitment to enact that change is not as universal. Organizing is difficult work, and it’s true that we still need our policy wonks, fundraisers, and deal-makers. But in order to affect the change we need, we have to organize the structures to help facilitate that change. I believe that structure needs to be created in the California Democratic Party. Like Obama’s South Carolina operation, we here in Region 4 have the ability to organize the structures for change that can be replicated across the state of California.
The resources are most certainly here to do it – from progressive elected officials to the netroots, from organized labor to issue-based advocates, and from the youthful energy unleashed by the Obama campaign to those at the center of liberation struggles, most recently fighting against Prop 8. But in order to build a structure to facilitate lasting change, we will need a Regional Director with a vision, drive, and capability. As an active member of the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee, a convener of the San Francisco Young Dems, the Democratic choice for District 6 Supervisor, and most importantly, as a community organizer, I am ready to take on this task. I believe that you are ready as well.
Join me in Sacramento on Saturday, April 25th, as we begin this task at the California Democratic Convention. And please feel free to email me here or call or text me on my cell phone with any questions, comments, or suggestions.
Together we can!
Chris Daly
“I’m asking people like you who fought for change in the campaign to continue fighting for change in your communities.” – Barack Obama
Luke Thomas
Luke Thomas is a former software developer and computer consultant who proudly hails from London, England. In 2001, Thomas took a yearlong sabbatical to travel and develop a photographic portfolio. Upon his return to the US, Thomas studied photojournalism to pursue a career in journalism. In 2004, Thomas worked for several neighborhood newspapers in San Francisco before accepting a partnership agreement with the SanFranciscoSentinel.com, a news website formerly covering local, state and national politics. In September 2006, Thomas launched FogCityJournal.com. The BBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, New York Times, Der Spiegel, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Magazine, 7x7, San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Bay Guardian and the San Francisco Weekly, among other publications and news outlets, have published his work. Thomas is a member of the Freelance Unit of the Pacific Media Workers Guild, TNG-CWA Local 39521 and is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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April 18, 2009 at 9:48 am
SFWeekly’s Joe Eskenazi published an article yesterday resurrecting August’s criminal history.
You can read about it here:
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2009/04/what_a_matchup_for_next_democr.php
April 17, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Chris Daly IS the machine, idiots. And progressives did not deliver the presdency, as Chris would suggest. A legend in his own mind.
April 15, 2009 at 1:33 pm
It’s a shame we have less choice than ever. Progressives are melding into the Democratic party, turning a blind-eye to many of the evils that went on in the Bush administration but now are fine under Obama.
April 14, 2009 at 2:31 pm
The fact of the matter is that, regardless of one’s original intent to change the system, the higher up you go in the Democratic Party, the more roadblocks you will face. Even if Chris miraculously manages to stay true to every one of his original principles, at the end of the day he will just become a frustrated, embittered, disillusioned and ineffective loner in the big ocean.
This is not to say that the Democratic Party doesn’t adapt to times and circumstances. That is what it is designed to do and that is why, when necessary, people like Chris come in handy. But Chris’s original intent will be blunted no matter what. And this is what’s so worrying. Maybe, after a ossifying period of being inculcated with the Party insiders, Chris will start replacing the word “idealism” with “pragmatism” and will even start to tell his supporters that Gavin Newsom is “not all that bad” and even a “good friend” of his. And then, somewhere down the road, a new, young, Democratic “reformer” looking to change the system will replace an older, infuriated, Longoistized Chris Daly who will stop at nothing to protect the cushy niche that he believes is owed to him. Of course, in public and through gritted teeth, Chris will wish this uppity son-of-a-bitch who doesn’t know how things really are “all the luck.”
Stay an activist and ween yourself off of the Democratic and Green Party’s illusions, Chris. That is where true independence and progress remains undiluted and that is where you will be much happier, much more loved and much more useful to those that need help.
April 14, 2009 at 11:39 am
Daly’s consistent,
If it weren’t for the few people like him the machine would go completely unchecked.
Hampton for Congress!
h.
April 14, 2009 at 11:21 am
Will Chris change the California Democratic Party or will the California Democratic Party change Chris?
April 13, 2009 at 9:21 pm
Chris Daly is a good fit for this post. I’ve known him for several years, and while, like me, he has his weaknesses, he is one of the best organizers in California politics today. I saw him in action on the Matt Gonzalez campaign, I heard his passion for the Howard Dean movement pre-Iowa, and I know his commitment to fighting for progressive positions within the Democratic Party. Politicians like Chris make me proud to be a newly registered Democrat.
April 13, 2009 at 8:36 pm
At least you will know one thing for sure is that one of the core values that Daly will bring back to the Democratic party is integral ethics..
April 13, 2009 at 11:26 am
Daly and his kind taking over the party is the fastest way possible to send California back to some sense of moderation. Go Daly Go! Don’t forget your ego and tin foil hat.