Interview with Matt Gonzalez
[I think Matt does a good job here… a few of the questions, he wanders a bit, but in general he’s pretty sharp. Not at all the raving ideologue that Newsom would like to paint him as. -Thomas]
SF Mayoral Candidate Matt Gonzalez
The Newsdesk.org interview
Interview conducted by Josh Wilson
Photography by Gabriella Marks
NTRODUCTION
What are your political origins and motives?
Well, I spent ten years as a public defender before I got into politics. I was elected to the board of supervisors, and now serve as the president of the board. I’m in the Green Party, and primarily would describe myself as a progressive, certainly on all social issues. On a lot of fiscal matters I tend to be, kind of more moderate in terms of, I mean, depending how you look at it, I certainly feel strongly about the need to caretake the public’s money.
And not because I don’t think government should spend money, but rather that I want to spend it on a lot of good progressive work, and address some of the fundamental disparities in our society related to wealth and poverty.
[…]
[And here’s the matching interview with Gavin Newsom. Interesting… in a sense, Matt seems to be running to the right of Newsom, in terms of financial responsibility - probably one of the factors being that Greens need to prove they’re responsible with the budget, in a way that major party candidates don’t. But, it is interesting to note that G.N. never gets any more specific than pointing to the $4.8 billion bureaucracy when he talks about how to pay for what he suggests. It is an interesting dynamic to have the Green playing the tightfisted fisical conservative, and the Dem. playing the free spending liberal. -Thomas]
SF Mayoral Candidate Gavin Newsom
The Newsdesk.org interview
Interview conducted by Josh Wilson
Photography by Gabriella Marks
INTRODUCTION
What are your political origins and motives?
Motives … I don’t know about motives. No … I’m actually a 5th generation San Franciscan, grew up in the Marina District in San Francisco, my great-great-grandfather came here in the mid-1800s, and was a carpenter and later became a police officer, so I’ve got strong ties to San Francisco. I’ve had the privilege of growing up, as I said, here, and privilege of having strong ties as well to the Democratic party, my grandfather was very involved in Truman’s campaign, and of course was one of Pat Brown’s closest friends, ran his campaign for district attorney, before Pat Brown became governor of the state of California, so I’ve always grown up around political life, with strong Democratic traditions and roots.
