A Political Soap Opera--With Soap

Until they published a front-page photograph Friday of Mayor Frank Jordan naked in the shower with two strangers, the general consensus around the city was that the mayoral campaign had been a hopeless bore. For months the three leading candidates had trudged through the neighborhoods, talking up their issues to anybody with a few folding chairs and a few hours to listen.

The more the candidates campaigned, the less the electorate seemed prepared to make a choice. A poll released last week showed the leading trio--Jordan, Willie Brown and Roberta Achtenberg, a former federal housing official--locked in a statistical dead heat. Some residents of this self-loving city suggested the closeness of the race reflected the high quality of the candidates. Others observed that, all things considered, there’s not much to complain about in San Francisco, and complaints are the fuel of modern politics.

Whatever, with less than two weeks until the election, the city was still waiting as of Friday for a candidate or issue to break out and define the campaign, to set it afire. According to the latest poll, one in five voters remained undecided--and not for a lack of effort.

“I haven’t made up my mind yet,” one San Franciscan was quoted in a front-page Chronicle article about the race’s “baffling” opaqueness. “I’m trying not to go on simple impressions. . . . Maybe that’s why I’m torn.”

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Until the mayor showed up nude, displaying a pale body overburdened by political banquets, the campaign’s most compelling story line had been Willie Brown and his struggle to create a second act for himself. Even those who despise him acknowledge that the self-proclaimed Ayatollah of the Assembly is California’s most fascinating political figure. Many political people believed he could stroll the state Capitol to City Hall. The same was said of Richard Nixon, after he lost a squeaker to John F. Kennedy and condescended to run for California governor. . . .

Although Brown can still win--significantly, he has stockpiled the most money for the stretch--nothing has come easy for him, and in a debate Friday night he looked noticeably drained and even a little out of his element. Brown outside the Assembly chambers is not unlike the Wizard of Oz in front of the curtain.

His toughest opponent is himself. For years all state legislators have run essentially the same campaign. They tell voters they are not Willie Brown. Obviously, this is not one of Brown’s options. Instead, he must attempt to capitalize on his reputation as a back-room wheeler-dealer. He offers himself as a politician who got things done in Sacramento--a tough sell.

Another problem for Brown is the presence of Achtenberg in the race. She would say the same of him. Both pull from the same liberal well, and thus benefit Jordan. Achtenberg is a good government progressive who unfortunately can sound like she is taking her best lines from Volvo bumper stickers. Nonetheless, she has avoided the Jordan-Brown cross-fire, and last week was regarded the hottest member of the troika.

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And now for Jordan, a former police chief and a political moderate. His main thrust as mayor has been to take on the homeless. San Francisco’s population of down-and-outers is probably no greater than anywhere else, but this is a walking city and so the bums stick out more. Jordan essentially sicked the cops on them, and in private places--at home or, say, voting booths--otherwise liberal San Franciscans will confess they approve.

Jordan’s political base is San Francisco’s often overlooked middle, the folks who resent the city’s reputation for zany politics. Jordan had seemed to have shaken an early reputation as a bumbler, recasting himself as a plugger. In politics today, pluggishness is a virtue. And then Friday morning he greeted two Los Angeles radio “personalities” at his door.

Broadcasting live, they performed a Halloween bit, and then, har, har, asked the mayor to, giggle, giggle, shower with them. Understand, this is morning FM. Anyway, the three of them hopped in, soaped up and sang “My Way.” Great radio. Then the boss jocks asked Jordan if they could snap a picture, for a keepsake. Sure, he said. And about six hours later, there was his honor on the Examiner front page, wearing nothing but the dazed expression of a candidate wanting real bad to talk with his consultant.

At a debate that night, Jordan tried to laugh it off, saying at least he’s “squeaky clean.” The audience laughed, too, but it was not at all clear whether they were laughing with Jordan or at him. Strangely, for this is politics, the answer to that riddle could well go down as a critical turning point in the campaign. Anyway, no one is bored up here anymore.