About Last Night

A few thoughts and observations from last night's mayoral campaign announcment by Ted DeSalvatore:

It was, by any standard, a short and specific-free speech. The two biggest themes were "change," and "normal guy." There was little to no mention of issues, forget offering specific solutions. Take all the quotes from SF, the Pride online, and the Telegram and Sentinel, and you pretty much have the entire speech. Without a doubt, this election is going to be a referendum on status quo vs. change, but that can only take a candidate so far (if the electorate is moving toward change). DeSalvatore is going to have to throw out some ideas, thoughts and plans. It's tough to do while knocking on doors -- people want to shake your hand and get you off their doorstep for the most part -- so he's going to have use the papers and talk shows to make some headway.

This is something DeSalvatore is desperately into, and desperately wants. He admitted beforehand to being emotional and nervous about the speech, and it showed. He took a number of long pauses to collect himself. He's an emotional guy, no doubt about it, and he's emotionally invested in this run. He's going to need to match some of that emotion with some thoughtful plans and proving he can play ball. DeSalvatore has been most effective as a councilor when he's swung from the heels and didn't care much about the collateral damage as long as he got results. That's pretty OK for a councilor, and he's done some effective things (notably making crime in the Elm St. et al area a top issue). But as a mayor, sometimes you need to sweet talk, cajole and make nice to get things done. DeSalvatore needs to prove he can do that.

"This is not something that I ever could have thought happened to myself," DeSalvatore said. Well, he's doing it, and he needs to get comfortable with it, right fast. He wasn't comfortable last night. He was charming, he was happy with an adoring crowd, but he was fully comfortable and was a bit short of fully confident. He needs to get comfortable with what he's doing (and considering how long this has been in the works, shouldn't he be by now?). He's a confident guy, so that won't be an issue.

He had a crowd of about 70 people last night (I stopped counting in the low-60s, and few folks trickled in after my last count), but none of his colleagues were there. I'd love to know if invitations were extended or not.

It won't be hard for DeSalvatore to shape himself as the man of change and the man of the people. A little more strength on the policy side (is this a broken record yet?) and he'll make a very strong candidate this fall.