ShareThisWhen San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom visited Los Angeles Tuesday for a town hall session with voters, his campaign dramatized a strategic -- and tantalizing -- theme in the 2010 Democratic race for governor.
It was the second time in two weeks that Newsom took his road show to the urban backyard of a potential gubernatorial challenger, a move that set up what eventually could become the Battle of the Big City Mayors.
Last week, Newsom crossed the bay and campaigned in Oakland -- the city that state Attorney General Jerry Brown calls home and governed as mayor for two terms.
This week, he is wooing voters in the Los Angeles area, home to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who was re-elected to a second term this month and is expected to make a 2010 gubernatorial run.
With the race to replace Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger next year already in full swing in both parties, Democrats are buzzing about a contest that could shine a spotlight on three men with executive experience in three of the state's leading urban Democratic bastions.
"We expect that this could come down to a tale of three cities -- and the relative records of Mayor Newsom, former Mayor Brown and Mayor Villaraigosa," says Newsom's political strategist, Eric Jaye. "Mayor Newsom has very cordial relations with both of them and respects them. But he would welcome the opportunity to compare the relative records."
The unusual competition represents "what happens when you have a very blue state like California," said Democratic pollster Ben Tulchin. He said the matchup would dramatize the ethnic and demographic changes in California, where "your biggest bases of support are the three most Democratic bases," each with their own unique characteristics and strengths.
That means San Francisco -- capital of "latte-sipping, white-collar educated liberals" and younger voters -- could be pitted against ethnic, blue-collar Oakland and the huge, Latino-rich voter base of Los Angeles, says Tulchin. "In California, all of those groups are why Democrats are as strong as they are," he said.
But, he adds, a big-city mayoral race would give both Newsom and Villaraigosa an advantage they don't have over Brown -- a two-term governor of California and three-time presidential candidate who enjoys a far lengthier record of public service and more name recognition among state voters than either of the other two.
If the Democratic race becomes a "tale of three cities," as the Newsom team has suggested, then "Jerry's in trouble," says Tulchin. "He doesn't want to be seen on equal footing as Gavin and Antonio. He wants to be a statesman, former governor and an attorney general."
Brown himself says that if he decides to enter the race -- and he's widely expected to do so -- he won't have to run as a mayor.
"Most candidates who run for governor have some sort of geographical base, and being a mayor gives you a stronger geographical base," says Phil Trounstine, who co-authors a political blog, calbuzz.com. "But it also identifies you with a particular region -- and that becomes a challenge to overcome elsewhere."
Republicans, like Flashreport.org publisher Jon Fleischman, say all three Democrats have a challenge on that front because they will all have to answer for the problems in their regions as well as the parochial and quirky politics of their individual cities.
E-mail Carla Marinucci at cmarinucci(at)sfchronicle.com.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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