[lbo-talk] Green dropouts

[alex lantsberg]

frankly i have no idea how anyone can say that gonzalez did not have the
support of the san francisco's progressive media.  the sf bay guardian is an
uncritical (or mildy critical) supporter and he's been all over the city in
all sorts of forums that give him all of the soapbox he needs to move an
agenda forward.  beyond his 47% in the general, gonzalez definitely made an
impact on our city - a minimum wage, chain store legislation, and increasing
interest in progressive activism to name three things right off the top of
my head, so its not like he was just spinning his wheels.  my guess is he
got tired of being one of 11.

as for national media - how much does that really matter if you're building
on the local level?  doesn't a singleminded focus on outlets like the nation
(albeit it's an important one) ignore the decentralized nature of
communications these days and the opportunity to get the message out to a
broad range of people and spark other local initiatives?

from an SF perspective its probably for the best.  there's a whole band of
folks who are willing to step in be willing to both agitate and legislate.
they may not have matt's star power, but they'll definitely continue to move
the ideas forward.   it'll be great if he stays involved, but it won't be
the end of things if he doesn't.

al