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TIME: Almanac 1995
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<text id=91TT2834>
<title>
Dec. 23, 1991: American Notes:San Francisco
</title>
<history>
TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991
Dec. 23, 1991 Gorbachev:A Man Without A Country
</history>
<article>
<source>Time Magazine</source>
<hdr>
NATION, Page 42
American Notes
SAN FRANCISCO
Shift to the Right
</hdr><body>
<p> When he was elected mayor of San Francisco in 1987, Art Agnos
described himself as an outsider who would shake up city hall.
Four years later, he finds himself on the outside again. Last
week the liberal Agnos was defeated in his bid for a second term
by former police chief Frank Jordan, a self-described moderate
with little patience for the city's high-profile populations of
homeless people and panhandlers. Jordan got 52% of the vote.
</p>
<p> Jordan benefited from a coalition of blue-collar and rich
voters peeved that under Agnos the city seemed more interested
in declaring itself a sanctuary for Desert Storm war resisters
than in keeping Market Street clean. Long delays in repairing
freeways damaged in the 1989 earthquake, while not attributable
to Agnos, did not help his image. Meanwhile, increasingly
militant posturing by activist gays--a key group of Agnos
supporters--sent more conventional voters scurrying to
Jordan's camp. The final blows for Agnos were a sputtering
economy and fewer dollars to spend on costly social programs
such as caring for AIDS victims.
</p>
<p> Those problems will not vanish before Jordan takes over in
January. But his victory showed that even in one of the nation's
most liberal cities, competent management is more important to
voters than political correctness.
</p>
</body></article>
</text>