Brown Opponent Enters Mayor’s Race

SAN FRANCISCO — Mayor Willie Brown, already in a bruising battle to keep his job, got a surprise Wednesday when one of his most powerful opponents jumped into the race.

Tom Ammiano, president of the city’s Board of Supervisors, reversed an earlier decision and announced that he would run for mayor in November as a write-in candidate--potentially splitting the liberal vote expected to go to Brown.

Ammiano’s entry adds a fresh twist to a bitter campaign that has pitted Brown against former Mayor Frank Jordan, and Clint Reilly, a longtime campaign consultant and a San Francisco political insider.

Brown, who defeated Jordan in 1995 thanks in part to broad support from the city’s politically powerful gay and ethnic minority communities, has come under attack for everything from failing to fix the city’s public transit system to favoritism to allegations of arrogance in running the government.

But public polls have shown that Brown’s challengers are also struggling to find support.

Ammiano, an openly gay former teacher who has a devoted following among progressive, leftist and labor groups in the city, said he had decided to enter the competition in response to “the despair people have been telling me that they feel about the mayor’s race.”

Although Ammiano, like most other political analysts, said it was next to impossible for a write-in candidate to win the race, he could siphon off enough votes to require a run-off election in December.