How the San Francisco Democrats took over the party, and then the nation

National Post, 24 October 2020

The present moment demonstrates how much American politics have shifted since 1984.

This American election marks the fourth time a woman has appeared on a major-party national ticket. The first such woman was Geraldine Ferraro, the New York congresswoman who ran for vice-president in 1984. She was formally nominated in San Francisco at the Democratic National Convention that summer.

A month later, the Republicans rhetorically employed the site as a symbol of a Democratic party that was too liberal for Main Street America. “San Francisco Democrats,” they called them. President Ronald Reagan cruised to a 49-state re-election.

In 2020, the San Francisco Democrats are getting their revenge.

Vice-presidential nominee, Sen. Kamala Harris, who was born in Oakland and raised in ultra-liberal Berkeley, Calif., is the San Francisco Democrat par excellence. The senator she replaced in 2016 was Barbara Boxer, another Bay Area liberal from Marin County, which is connected by the Golden Gate Bridge to San Francisco.

Continue reading at the National Post.