In the first kind of contest of this sort a gay upstart challenged a gay incumbent in a party primary. A third candidate, Joe Nation, straight white male - referred to as 'conservative', thought he would be a liberal anywhere else, was also on the ballot. Mark Leno, the challenger representing the Gavin Newsom bunch (he is term-limited out of the assembly this time around) took on the incumbent Carol Midgen who is part of the Burton/Pelosi/Feinstien bunch. Leno scored a decisive victory in a very dirty, very expensive, and very bitter battle. But, Leno beat Midgen on the home court of San Francisco, and he came within a few thousand votes of beating Nation in his home county of Marin.
Perhaps San Francisco can live up to its 'popular' culture image as a progressive city, and move away from what it all too often has been the past few decades, a political machine run urban empire.
In a nuts and bolts sense, Leno is a great political type, in the best and worst senses of that word and ran a great campaign, and Midgen thought she was a shoe-in, did too little, too late.
