NEWS & ARTICLES

The morning after the November 2002 election I arrived early at my office in Noe Valley to find an impatient Jim Ross already waiting outside.

We both knew that with the Care Not Cash battle behind us, the 2003 mayoral race was about to begin. As we settled down to work, the very first topic was who we would recruit to run our field campaign. We already knew that the political geography of San Francisco meant there were not enough likely Gavin Newsom voters to win the race and that a massive turnout operation would be the key to a victory.

Jim started the conversation by saying we needed “an Alex Tourk type” for the job. In one of the better suggestions I made in that campaign, I wondered if we shouldn’t just call Alex first. Later that morning I phoned him – and by that evening the three of us were mapping out the strategy for a massive field campaign.

In 2003, victory for Gavin Newsom came down to a field effort that helped identify nearly 100,000 voters and turn out nearly all of them to vote. I know it was the largest and best field operation ever assembled in San Francisco, a city known for its emphasis on door-to-door politics. Alex Tourk made it happen.

Throughout the entire year of that campaign, and most particularly in the last frantic days, Alex Tourk showed why he is a name brand. During the run-off, we started the race five percentage points behind Matt Gonzalez, who was surging on the strength of his primary win. Other campaigns would have panicked. But with Tourk managing our field efforts, we knew a year of hard work would bring us home. Thanks to Tourk’s team, we knew we had won – and within a few thousands votes by how much – by Election Day.

With Jim Ross moving into a successful consulting business, there was never any doubt that Alex Tourk would be tapped to manage the Newsom re-election. Alex left his job as Deputy Chief of Staff in the Newsom administration and started on the campaign in September. He was helping organize a campaign that was already beating the very high benchmarks set in 2003.

Now, as most of you know, Alex Tourk is off to start the next successful chapter of his professional life. The “why” of this loss has already been documented by Matier & Ross and many others. We are now left to move forward without him in this campaign.

While I have smiled a few times in the past weeks at the irony of Mayor Newsom’s opponents heaping praise on Alex, all of it is deserved and their quotes and quips don’t even start to get to the depth of his qualities as a person and an organizer. The fact that Alex was recognized and admired by all of the many competing political factions in San Francisco is a mark of more than his talent – it is a sign of how he maintained an unsullied decency in the middle of this very poisonous political culture.

One of the few good things about these past few weeks is that Alex Tourk is finally receiving the public recognition for his talent and his work that he has long deserved. He has shown that he is an organizer without peer in California politics. And his work on causes like Project Homeless Connect demonstrate that he uses his considerable skills to do more than just elect politicians – but to make profound social change.

Alex’s Homeless Connect is a model for the nation. And it was his baby. I would occasionally debate him about its staying power. I would wonder if volunteers with the best intentions were enough. I would argue that the city needed to institutionalize these services so that they would go on after this administration is gone. Alex pushed back hard. “Just watch and wait and you will see we’re building something that will last,” he would say.

On Sunday, I watched with admiration as a team of young organizers Alex recruited and trained put nearly 500 people into a room and ran a flawless headquarters opening. The three organizers moved with purpose and no sign of panic as the room filled up and the crowd spilled onto the street.

As I left the event, I kept thinking what a testament it was to Alex that even after he is gone – his stamp remains on this campaign.

We move on with great sadness without our field general and good friend. But thanks to Alex, there are three young “Alex Tourk types” doing the work he taught. Alex Tourk is the only organizer I know who could leave a legacy like that.