Giving up on Matt Letters

The Train Has Left the Station (SF Chronicle, Dec. 7, 2002)
From: Rob Anderson
To: letters@sfchronicle.com
Sent: Dec. 6, 2002
Subject: The Main Problem
Editor:
So Matt Gonzalez, who showed little interest in the homeless issue in the 2000 campaign, wants Peter Keane to run for mayor against Gavin Newsom next year (Matier & Ross, Dec. 4). Keane will be a suitable candidate for the left, because he too thinks homelessness isn’t “the main problem facing the city.” Based on last month’s election results, a majority of city voters disagree.
Sorry boys, but you’re too late: The train has left the station, and Newsom is at the controls.

Matt and the “Root Cause” of Homelessness (in SF Examiner, Sept. 5-7, 2003)
Editor:
Supervisor Gonzalez needs to elaborate on his cryptic remark in yesterday’s Examiner, that Gavin Newsom’s Care Not Cash doesn’t get to the “root cause” of homelessness.
If Gonzalez knows what the cause is, he’s obligated to share it with the rest of us so we can tailor our proposed solutions to the exact nature of the problem.
Angela Alioto has proposed cleaning up the city’s homeless shelters. Tom Ammiano has Proposition O to his credit. But Gonzalez has made no specific proposals to deal with homelessness. Maybe he has a secret plan he’ll reveal when he tells us what the root cause is.

Rob Anderson
San Francisco

The Progressive “Vision”
From: Rob Anderson
To: letters@sfchronicle.com
Sent: September 17, 2003
Subject: The Progressive Vision for the City
Editor:
So progressive board president Matt Gonzalez thinks “the numbers don’t add up” for Care Not Cash. He evidently didn’t consider this number in his calculations: more than 169 people died on our streets over the past year.
Gavin Newsom understands something Gonzalez and many progressives still don’t get: we have an ongoing emergency on the streets of our city.
If Gonzalez is elected mayor, we’ll have no box stores in our neighborhoods and streets designed for bicycle safety. On the other hand, we’ll still have homeless people living and dying on our streets.

Matt’s Weakness
From: Rob Anderson
To: letters@sfchronicle.com
Sent: October 18, 2003
Subject: Matt Gonzalez
Editor:
Yes, Matt Gonzalez is honest and intelligent. But Rachel Gordon’s political profile nicely illustrates how what he thinks is his strength---his leftist political ideology---is turning out to be a weakness in dealing with homelessness, the most important issue facing San Francisco.
Like other progressives, Gonzalez’s approach to homelessness suggests that the homeless are just another oppressed group whose rights and lifestyle need to be defended.
The unhip, uncool, boringly moderate Gavin Newsom understands that the most important thing we can do for the homeless---and for the city---is get them off the streets.

Matt Gonzalez: Mr. Groovy
From: Rob Anderson
To: lwellman@sfchronicle.com
Sent: October 22, 2003
Subject: Matt Gonzalez: Mr. Groovy
Laurel:
Matt Gonzalez may be the grooviest guy in SF, but where’s his homeless policy? Instead of putting forth his own proposal, he snipes at Newsom and Care Not Cash. He and other “progressives”---a word that’s beginning to sound nauseatingly precious, don’t you think?---are particularly obnoxious when they challenge Newsom’s motives for wanting to be mayor. Theirs, of course, are pure, because they are “progressives” and leftists. Being a progressive means never having to question your own motives.
In fact, the uncovered scandal of SF politics over the past 10 years has been the political left’s complete abdication on the homeless issue. Until Care Not Cash, the left could get solar power and public power on the ballot but nothing to deal with homelessness.
You need to do something to expose the smugness of the progressive community. Nobody ever thought of putting “ethics into politics” until Mr. Groovy came along? Smugness and self-righteousness---not an attractive political platform for all of us who are hopelessly uncool and actually embarrassed that homeless people are dying on our streets.

The Ideological Battle
From: Rob Anderson
To: letters@sfchronicle.com
Sent: November 17, 2003
Subject: Ideological Battle
Editor:
If, as Matt Gonzalez claims, the campaign for mayor is an “ideological battle,” he and progressives have already lost. A majority of city voters have made it clear they want something done about homelessness and the squalor on our streets. Progressive ideology, on the other hand, evidently involves the tacit assumption that homelessness is something we have to live with under our wicked capitalist system, which is apparently why Gonzalez has offered nothing substantive to counter Gavin Newsom’s proposals to deal with the problem.
Newsom’s approach may not solve the problem, but at least he understands that what’s happening on our streets is both an ongoing human tragedy and a political emergency.

Young and Groovy is Not Enough (in SF Chronicle, Dec. 23, 2003)
From: Rob Anderson
To: letters@sfchronicle.com
Sent: December 22, 2003
Subject: Runoff Lessons
Editor:
Rich DeLeon's gushing post-mortem on the Gonzalez campaign seems off in important respects. Perhaps one of the big lessons of the election was that "the city's young people learned that they have political muscle." But the Gonzalez campaign, like the Ammiano campaign in 1999, was surprisingly content-free. It's unclear what all that enthusiasm really means in specific political terms. Instead, as Laura Wellman's piece shows, the main message of the Gonzalez campaign was, "We are young, we are groovy, therefore we should have political power."
Newsom, on the other hand, represents a serious challenge to the status quo on homeless policy, rejecting the failed policies of the Brown administration.