Outsiders like to think of San Francisco as a hotbed of contentious activism. Locals have tended to regard City Hall as the arena where Democrats and progressive Democrats mix it up. With Tuesday’s election, you can say goodbye to any notion of anarchy. All bow to the victorious political machine. City Hall is all-Democrat all the time — yet conservative in its own fashion: the status quo is king. Hang on, esteemed reader, because City Hall relationships read like a soap opera digest. Mayor Ed Lee, who was re-elected, was handpicked by his predecessor Gavin Newsom in 2011. Lee, then city administrator, had never run for office when Newsom asked him to serve as interim mayor. Lee first promised he would be a placeholder for the year that remained in Newsom’s second term, and then decided to run for the office. He won. This year, Lee faced no serious opposition. Newsom himself, now California lieutenant governor, and governor in waiting, was handpicked by his predecessor Willie Brown, now a San Francisco Chronicle columnist, to fill a vacant seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1997. When Newsom first ran for mayor in 2003, Brown endorsed him. In that run, Newsom faced a challenge in Green Party candidate Matt Gonzalez, but Newsom won by a comfortable majority. When Newsom ran for re-election in 2007, he faced no serious opposition. Newsom left the mayor’s office when he won election to statewide office. San Franciscan
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