Politics and Public Service
Gonzalez entered politics when he ran for San Francisco District Attorney in 1999. He campaigned in a field of five candidates, including incumbent Terence Hallinan. His campaign focused on cleaning up alleged political corruption, prosecuting environmental crimes, and fighting illegal evictions. Hallinan won the race but the campaign raised Gonzalez's profile. He finished third with 11 percent of the vote, or 20,153 votes.
Read more about this topic: Matt Gonzalez
Famous quotes containing the words politics, public and/or service:
“They who have been bred in the school of politics fail now and always to face the facts. Their measures are half measures and makeshifts merely. They put off the day of settlement, and meanwhile the debt accumulates.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Nothing is so foolish, they say, as for a man to stand for office and woo the crowd to win its vote, buy its support with presents, court the applause of all those fools and feel self-satisfied when they cry their approval, and then in his hour of triumph to be carried round like an effigy for the public to stare at, and end up cast in bronze to stand in the market place.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)
“Finally, your lengthy service ended,
Lay your weariness beneath my laurel tree.”
—Horace [Quintus Horatius Flaccus] (65–8)