Brown Emerges as Favorite in S.F. Mayoral Runoff

An exuberant Assemblyman Willie Brown emerged Wednesday as the odds-on favorite to become the next mayor of San Francisco after placing first in the primary and then winning the endorsement of two of his vanquished rivals.

Brown will now go head-to-head in a five-week runoff campaign with incumbent Mayor Frank Jordan, who came in second in Tuesday’s primary but failed to win even a third of the citywide vote.

The former Assembly Speaker acknowledged that he must overcome voters’ questions about his honesty and integrity if he is to become mayor, but pledged to mount an aggressive campaign to rally all those who cast anti-Jordan votes.

“In my opinion, Frank Jordan has topped out,” an optimistic Brown told reporters Wednesday. “If he really wanted to do the city a favor, he would announce today that with more than 60% of the voters rejecting him, he is going to save them the pain of an expensive election in December and . . . ask Willie Brown to start organizing city government.”

But reflecting the intensity of the upcoming one-on-one campaign, Brown and Jordan were back on the stump Wednesday morning even before the vote count was completed.

“I readily welcome this discussion, this debate, this head-on collision, whatever you want to call it,” Jordan said at a Wednesday afternoon news conference. “I have no doubt five weeks from now that I will be mayor of San Francisco.”

The strategy of the Jordan campaign will be to turn the runoff into a referendum on Brown’s character, highlighting his deal-making as Assembly Speaker for 14 years.

“I think Willie Brown is more interested in his own personal interests than in the interests of San Francisco,” Jordan told reporters. “My only special interest is the city and county of San Francisco and the people in the neighborhoods.”

The county registrar of voters, plagued by computer glitches and delays, still has about 6,000 absentee votes to count, but officials said there were not enough outstanding ballots to displace Jordan or Brown from the runoff.

Of about 210,000 ballots cast, Brown was leading with 34.8% of the vote, Jordan had 33.2% and civil rights lawyer Roberta Achtenberg had 27.4%.

Businessman Ben Hom, the only Republican in the race, finished fourth with 3% of the total. Hom, who had sought revenge against Jordan for firing him from a city post, spent $250,000 of his own money on the race--or about $45 for each vote he received.

Brown and Jordan had spent more than $1 million each coming into the final weekend of the campaign.

Officials estimated the turnout in the primary at more than 50% of registered voters, slightly higher than four years ago.

Achtenberg, who had hoped to be the city’s first lesbian mayor, conceded defeat in the early morning hours Wednesday and, in a characteristically straightforward move, immediately endorsed Brown.

A former county supervisor and Clinton Administration official, Achtenberg had sought to build a grass-roots movement with a platform stressing clean government and the need for neighborhood involvement. She also had hammered Brown as the symbol of machine politics and criticized him for insensitivity on the issue of sexual harassment.

But addressing hundreds of supporters, many of them in tears, she said in her concession speech that “the humane, progressive principles that San Francisco needs to stand for will best be served by seeking to move Frank Jordan aside and uniting behind Mr. Brown.”

At a news conference later in the morning, Brown welcomed her endorsement and said he would work hard to earn the votes of her backers. Brown left open the possibility that he would find a post for Achtenberg in his administration if he wins on Dec. 12.

“I think the voters have tested me on my knowledge of city issues and they have given me passing grades,” he told reporters. “I think the voters have tested me with respect to stamina and given me passing grades.”

Brown was unexpectedly joined by Supervisor Angela Alioto, who had dropped out of the mayor’s race last month and endorsed Achtenberg. The daughter of popular former Mayor Joseph Alioto, she threw her support to Brown as she hugged him before the cameras.

Brown, who is leaving the Assembly after 16 terms because of term limits, said he will seek to prove to voters that he was worthy of their trust and pledged to bring them better schools, more jobs, improved transportation and more affordable housing.

“On every street corner, in every neighborhood, in every community center, we’re going to take this campaign to Jordan like he has never seen before,” Brown told supporters on election night. “I want us to win this election more than I’ve wanted anything in my life.”

The big question for Brown and Jordan is how much of Achtenberg’s vote they can attract.

A survey conducted before Tuesday’s primary by independent pollster David Binder found that Achtenberg’s backers were more inclined to support Brown than Jordan.

Asked which of the two men they would support in a head-to-head contest, 62% said they would endorse Brown, while 18% said they would support Jordan. The remainder said they were undecided or would not vote for either.

“If I believe the conventional wisdom, Willie Brown will win easily,” Binder said. “The numbers are with him. The demographics are with him. He just needs to keep on being as focused and structured as he was in the primary.”

At the same time, Binder cautioned that Brown must mount a successful get-out-the-vote drive in December as he did Tuesday, when he had about 1,200 volunteers working the precincts--including clergymen who drove voters to the polls.

Some campaign consultants were already writing Jordan’s political obituary. John Whitehurst, a veteran Democratic consultant not working for either of the mayoral finalists, said it would be “virtually impossible” for Jordan to win the runoff.

“Every possible negative about Willie Brown surfaced during this primary election, and the voters still chose to select him as their first choice among three strong candidates,” Whitehurst said. “This next choice is a lot easier for San Franciscans.”

But at Jordan headquarters, campaign manager Clint Reilly said he always expected Jordan would face Brown in the runoff and was confident his candidate would win by zeroing in on Brown’s character.

“Now, we tighten our focus,” Reilly said. “The question becomes whether voters can trust Willie Brown to lead the city.”

In other San Francisco balloting, Dist. Atty. Arlo Smith--once the Democratic nominee for attorney general--lost his bid for a fifth term when he finished third behind Bill Fazio, his former assistant, and liberal Supervisor Terence Hallinan. Smith polled 26% of the vote compared to Hallinan’s 38.3% and Fazio’s 35.7%.

Settling a divisive cultural issue, the voters also soundly rejected a ballot measure that would have removed the name Cesar Chavez from city street signs and restored the old name of Army Street.

Times staff writer Mark Gladstone and researcher Norma Kaufman contributed to this story.

* LOCAL ELECTIONS: Conservative Christians win four key seats in North County school board races. B4