Full Flaps
Brown carries this conundrum into his hosting of next week's U.S. Conference
of Mayors, a setting uniquely disposed to either make or break him as a
viable political entity. You've by now grown weary of hearing me proclaim
that Brown, as titular sovereign of urban America, has influence of almost
unreasonable proportions within the Democratic Party, and that that clout,
properly applied, has the potential to eclipse all other forms of internal
party debate. No one else, I will reiterate, could tell Clinton to take
a flying leap and get a thank-you note from the White House in the overnight
mail. This is the reason, after all, that we elected Brown, though it clearly
seems we misplaced our trust in his like-mindedness.
We deferred monitoring Brown during his Sacramento hiatus, and ignored the
distant rumblings about his neoliberal defection, preferring to update the
residue of his early days as a defender of civil rights and voiceless lumpen
and blend them with the later dealmaker reputation he'd acquired. Against
our better judgment, 18 months into his mayoralty we're still granting him
the benefit of the doubt, hostage to the latent potential of his national
power base and our need to know we have a political talisman at the ready
in our pocket.
It's in the nature of punditry to speak grandly of defining moments in the
lives of politicians, and assuredly Brown's moment is upon him next week.
If the accretion of past firefights and those beckoning in the remainder
of his term have given him pause about the wisdom of his New Democrat conversion,
he'll never again have the opportunity the mayors conference will afford
him.
In concert with the municipal Perle Mesta, Charlotte Maillard Swig, Brown
will spend more than $2 million to make this event a showcase for the city
and his leadership approach. The scheduled mix of formal dinners, entertainment
and amenities proffered to Clinton, Gore and the attending mayors has the
glaze of an international summit meeting.
Brown is quick to stress that his intention is to parlay as well as partay,
and views the conference as an effort to lobby administration officials
seriously on behalf of the city. To that end he pushed for the participation
of the five attending Cabinet members.
One can only be mystified, to say the least, that the announced lineup of
speakers and topics hasn't produced an appropriate gasp from Brown. Vice
President Gore will speak on "the importance of sustainable development
and joint city/county efforts," de-euphemized as: "We whipped
the bejesus out of you in Washington with our cave-ins to the corporations,
the military and their congressional cronies and we have no money for you.
Local governments are on their own. But you already knew that." The
rapacious Frank Murkowski of Alaska (!), the butcher of the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge and the Tongass National Forest (he tied up a bad Presidio
bill with more corporate add-ons and giveaways, you'll recall), follows
Gore. He'll enjoin "a national conversation on urban parks." Stifle
your laughter momentarily, because it gets funnier. Clinton is up next,
and the possibility of a reprise of his UC San Diego speech on the crisis
in race relations would offer a complementary lead-in to Labor Secretary
Alexis Herman's speech on -- how did you guess? -- welfare reform. It appears
all that's missing is Fred Rogers intoning, "Ma-a-a-yors, can you say
c-h-u-t-z-p-a-h?"
Rather more to the point, any interrogatories ought to be demands for an
accounting of how anyone could have thought this merde flambé
would pass muster in this city. It amazes me that the press, in observing
Brown wielding his insolence as a cloak for his inability to connect with
the sensibilities of his electorate, has exercised such restraint. This
steaming mound all but oxidizes the language of civility. And as I track
it, those not paid to publicly disseminate and who have moved beyond their
earlier appellatives for Brown of "sellout" and "out of touch"
have become untempered legion: "fraud," "idiot," and
"bozo" are among their more common current derogations.
Apparently Brown views this conference as simply some sort of partisan contest
(as if there still existed an opposition political party) among mayors for
table scraps from Washington. Bear with me once more as I enumerate what
should be the obvious alternative: The crafting of a united front of mayors
who are privately very livid and whose cities will soon be hit with the
consequences of Clinton's blowsy cynicism and cowardice. Men and women on
the verge of concluding that the enemy is the corrosive hybrid of money
and privilege, fairly begging for peer leadership and open to delivering
language equal to the hour: Mr. President, how could you possibly think
you could come into this forum after putting us in this fix and expect from
us even the slightest bit of politeness and accord? Why are you and your
people even here?
This conference has the markings of the ultimate gimme for Brown. It has
been placed in his lap at the optimum moment, custom-tailored for the anger
he can personally keynote as a prelude to the 2000 election and the search
for a genuine progressive candidate unbeholden to the rubric of the one-party
state. But of course you're correct in thinking I must be dreaming. The
folly is in believing that at the close of this confab Brown will have done
anything but bow and scrape, boogaloo and guffaw to no discernible effect
save the augmenting of his established buppie self-indulgence.There's not
the slightest evidence that he will be reborn as whomever we once thought
he was, and as his complicity in the planning of this vacuous extravaganza
suggests, all the hats and party favors in the land won't put him back together
again.
The language he could have addressed to Clinton will thus redound. Brown
will get another ricochet, and this time it's deserved and uncontested:
Stay the hell out of our way, Willie. The real work of this city now begins.
And the work of San Francisco remains a beacon to the country. It was right
in front of you and you never saw it.