Getting down and dirty with SF Supervisor Daly

San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly has represented the city’s District 6 for 10 years. That’s the Civic Center, the Tenderloin, the Inner Mission and SOMA and Treasure and Yerba Buena Islands. But now, after a decade of battling for social justice – often, literally battling – he’s termed out. And for many, the end of the run for the “bad boy” of San Francisco politics is good news. Here are some reasons why:

CHRIS DALY: Help me, help you. You are being heavy-handed with your chairpersonship for political purposes…

WOMAN: Supervisor, there are many of us here ... I would like to listen to what ... you asked a question, he is answering the question, I would like to hear his answer…

DALY: Help me, help you. It seems as if the deal is done, no one wants to touch Daly, Daly's radioactive. And fine.

MAN: Mr. Chairman…

DALY: Help me, help you! Because I don't know if it was the sheen off the hair or what it was – I just spent more time with Gavin Newsom during this budget process than you did with me. I will use the word f*** in every Board of Supervisor's meeting.

That’s San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly. But to many, this foul-mouthed word-slinger is known as an invaluable voice of the underdog. The champion of the under-served. Here’s another side of Chris Daly.

DALY: First of all, free Tibet. (crowd cheers) What could be more human than human rights? … This department in the city, that is the can-do city San Francisco, we can find a way ... that's "Big Daddy Daly" to you, ma'am...

So, won’t the real Chris Daly please stand up? We wanted to get some closure from the man himself as he exits San Francisco politics … for now, anyway. So KALW’s Ben Trefny dropped by Supervisor Daly’s apartment in San Francisco’s Inner Mission district for a conversation.

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BEN TREFNY: Your email signature says, "Be mild with the mild, shrewd with the crafty, confiding to the honest, rough to the ruffian and a thunderbolt to the liar. But in all this, never be unmindful of your own dignity." I'd like you to give me an example of how that quote's applied to your work on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

CHRIS DALY: (laughs) Not my quote, the quote's from John Brown. That quote more than anything sums up how I approach politics, how I approach life.

For those people who are good people, who treat others with respect, I have the utmost respect for them. But for political players who are trying to get over ... anyone who wants to, you know, walk on poor people or those who are disadvantaged in order to achieve personal gain or something greater for themselves, I'm going to call that out quick as Kodak.

An example is you'll see the Newsom Administration on budget matters aligning with police and fire and downtown while slashing services for the poor and homeless, basic health and human services type of stuff. If you just say, "I beg to differ," they're going to look at you and kind of smile and march on. But if you attempt to extract something out of them or make them pay a price for doing it, then they're going to think twice about doing it again.

TREFNY: So when you say "make them pay a price," how do you mean that exactly? You're pretty renowned for forceful language, so to speak. What would you say is a way to get somebody to pay the price?

DALY: Let's take a real-life proposal, say to cut homeless drop-in services or AIDS/HIV programs. And you see that money's not being cut in a proportional way out of the police department. What you do is you go and you move to take a significant cut out of the police department. Or if the mayor who's making these cuts has pet projects like the 311 call center or new special assistance or some kind of greenwash, climate-faux program...

TREFNY: Making somebody who's in charge of San Francisco's environmental, international effort...

DALY: Something like that. You just go to knock out the things that the mayor cares about. That's actually in City Hall speak, that's stronger and more powerful than anything I can say.

TREFNY: You're the supervisor of District 6 for about another month, is that right?

DALY: Almost two months. On January 8 at 12 noon, that's when the new supervisors get sworn in and that's when I officially leave my seat.

TREFNY: What are you proudest of in your last 10 years of service?

DALY: I'm really proud of a lot of things. What I'm proudest of is the thing that's the hardest to describe, which is the movement that I think I've been a part of within San Francisco politics. I think that we've very much transformed the discussion and for any of the listeners who were around in the '90s, Willie Brown was the mayor when most of the supervisors were appointees of Willie Brown. I think his famous comment is that he gets six votes at any time for any item at the Board of Supervisors. And he even referred to the Board as his handmaiden.

And I remember as a tenant activist, walking the halls at City Hall, attempting to talk to supervisors about some sort of tenant legislation, and not even be able to get in the door to talk to the legislative aides or interns. Just locked door after locked door. Progressive San Francisco was locked out with the notable exception being Tom Ammiano on the Board of Supervisors. Progress San Francisco was just locked out of City Hall. And I think that in the last 10 years, we've really opened up City Hall to everyday people and to folks who care about real environmental justice issues, or tenant rights issues, or health and human service stuff. The doors are open.

TREFNY: So, that was something that you were really proud of. Tell me something that you would have done differently.

DALY: I don't have too many regrets. I think that sometimes I can go back and there are a handful of items that I would have voted differently on or I think I might have made a mistake. But at the time, based on the information I had, I did what I thought was right. I think when I told that landlord lobbyist to f*** off, who was heckling me during a meeting, I probably should've handled that differently. But if you look back, I think my first kid, my boy Jack, was six months old at the time. He was never really a great sleeper at night, so anybody who's been new parents, I mean I was a new parent and probably operating on three or four hours of uninterrupted sleep in a meeting on an important tenant measure that I was pushing, and this landlord lobbyist is up heckling me while the meeting's going on? Man, I think maybe I was soft on him!

TREFNY: Well, you’ve never been afraid to drop the f-bomb of course. You even said as a New Year’s resolution that you would vow to say the word f*** at every Board meeting.

DALY: I haven’t said f*** at every Board meeting. I think like all the best intentions of New Year’s resolutions – you know, you’re gonna go to the gym every other day, but by February first it’s kind of petering out, right? That was an insider joke that I posted as a Facebook status update. So, interesting that my personal Facebook page – I have an inside joke and I run it, and it gets so much attention.

TREFNY: Well, you’re a public figure.

DALY: Yeah, I didn’t say I wasn’t.

TREFNY: Brian Wilson got a lot of guff as the Giants’ closer for tweeting at 3 a.m. What’s he doing up at 3 a.m., he’s gotta pitch the next day! What’s the supervisor saying he’s gonna drop the f-bomb on everybody at supervisor meetings?

DALY: Timmy Lincecum, when they asked if he was ready for the playoffs: f*** yeah!

TREFNY: But he was celebrated for some reason...

DALY: (Laughing) Look, Tim Lincecum doesn’t have a political opposition. If you have a built-in political opposition who are the elite, who basically control the newspaper and 85% of the political discussion, anything you do, they’re going to try to figure out how to use it against you. So you can walk through the politics afraid of your shadow, because your shadow is going to be used against you, or you can just go and be yourself and act on faith and try and do the right thing.

TREFNY: So I’d like to do some word association, pretty rapid fire here with you. If you could give me a sentence or so about every name or place I give you. And I’d like to start with San Francisco Mayor and Lieutenant Governor Elect Gavin Newsom.

DALY: Greasy.

TREFNY: San Francisco Board of Supervisors President David Chiu.

DALY: …getting nothing.

TREFNY: Nothing on David Chiu.

DALY: No. Placeholder?

TREFNY: San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris.

DALY: She’s motivated.

TREFNY: San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi.

DALY: Also motivated.

TREFNY: Do you have any kind of qualifier for “motivated”?

DALY: For Kamala, I would say that she very much is a climber. Jeff Adachi – I’m not sure what it is. Haven’t figured it out. He’s very conservative. I know that he’s come out of the progressive movement but he’s just very, very conservative.

TREFNY: Democrats.

DALY: Weak.

TREFNY: Republicans.

DALY: Vicious.

TREFNY: Greens.

DALY: Well-intentioned.

TREFNY: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

DALY: He’s a joke, as far as I can tell.

TREFNY: Why do you say that?

DALY: I’m not sure how he got to be that big of a celebrity. But he was successful, and then he traded that in to be governor, and he was just a failure at governor. I’m interested in seeing if he can go back to Hollywood movies or not.

TREFNY: How about Governor Elect Jerry Brown?

DALY: You know, he’s like a Timex watch.

TREFNY: Takes a licking?

DALY: And keeps on ticking. He’s an outlier, I think.

TREFNY: In what way? In how he keeps coming back, takes so many different positions?

DALY: Yeah, just completely recreating himself. I mean, I’m 38, so it’s pretty impressive that you can have that career and that life and then sort of fade and then mount this comeback, decades later.

TREFNY: How about the state of California?

DALY: You know, people like to say that the state is broke. But I sort of see the opposite. There is limitless potential in this state.

TREFNY: Do you think that will be realized under Jerry Brown?

DALY: No.

TREFNY: How about the city of San Francisco?

DALY: It’s rife with contradiction. And, for me, there’s a real class battle happening in San Francisco. And I think that the outcome of that is going to pave the way for what direction this region, this state and this country is going to go in.

TREFNY: San Francisco District 6 Supervisor Elect Jane Kim.

DALY: New.

TREFNY: San Francisco District 6 Supervisor Chris Daly.

DALY: Old (Laughing). I probably wouldn’t have said old, except I just said new for Jane.

I’m very passionate. And I’m very compassionate. I’m different than I was ten years ago. I’m less patient than I used to be. And love me or hate me, whatever, I am going to fight for social justice for as long as I’m around and kicking.

Do you appreciate “Big Daddy Daly’s” candidness? His bluntness? Or do you feel, shall we say, differently? And listen to the rest of Ben’s interview with Supervisor Daly here