20
2003
The Chron has endorsed Kamala Harris for San Francisco District Attorney, about as nice a birthday present as anyone could ask for.
The paper’s edit board was positively enthusiastic: “Kamala Harris provides a chance to have the best of both visions of a district attorney's office. She is highly competent, dedicated to law enforcement and a force for innovation,” the paper wrote. “San Francisco deserves a district attorney who can bring dignity and integrity to an office long lacking it -- and who can put people behind bars who deserve it. Harris is our choice.”
Harris, whose ex-boyfriend Willie Brown, hasn’t exactly made her public life easier, has been doing very well in the polls – despite the debate over her violating campaign spending caps and subsequent fine by the city’s ethics commission.
A recent business community poll – one that showed 34 percent of those contacted were undecided – gave Harris 17 percent of the vote, double the 8 percent she attracted over the summer.
That same poll shows that current D.A. Terrance Hallinan is in serious trouble, garnering only 23 percent of those polled, a standing that’s only going to be further eroded by the Chron endorsement. Bill Fazio, a former assistant D.A., running on a tough-crime platform, came in first in the poll, picking up 26 percent of the vote.