My Candidacy for Mayor of San Francisco

David Giesen

[ GroundSwell, 2003]

Henry George once said that the only way that anything substantial could be won for the people was through politics. And with that in mind he urged working men [and women] to go into politics. So I have. That is, I have entered the lists as a duly certified candidate for Mayor of San Francisco, with the election set for Nov. 4.

In a field of ten where the front runners sport at least two hundred thousand dollars (the front runner already bank rolled at $2M), my candidacy is nominal yet strategic. With an unabashed georgist message enunciating both the dynamics of social justice and robustly acknowledging community as intrinsic and not merely contractual, I have had plenty of opportunity to challenge academics and the public in their claim that socializing publicly generated land values is merely theoretical. "I am a candidate and here is my platform. You can vote for it."

That the Green Party of San Francisco utterly ignored my candidacy loudly demonstrates the absence of an intellectual center to this self-proclaimed progressive entity. It prefers direct actions to formulating a coherent policy platform. This is not to say that the soft-hearted Democrats and Greens don't advocate food in the belly and roof over the head policies, but it is to say that these policies shatter on the rocky shore of tax structure. Hefty business taxes pinch small business and drive big business out of town. When the latter occurs a lusty lefty cheer of triumph rises that drowns out the plea of the panhandler so that her basic human right goes unheard. The fundamental skewer to good wages, of course, is California's infamous Prop. 13 which has locked in 1980s property tax assessments for much of downtown San Francisco. There is currently 10 million plus square feet of vacant office space in the City. Not an auspicious time to raise business taxes. Land owners' fixed costs are so low they can leave downtown idle and real estate sale prices bump upwards!

For an introduction to the issues most pressing San Francisco, according to the Green Party, visit my website, www.giesen-for-mayor.com, making sure to visit the Q&A;page.

The strategic objective of this candidacy is to garner some name recognition and a small following preliminary to a viable 2004 candidacy for the San Francisco Unified School Board.