Molinari, Jack: Moscone\u27s legacy

Jack Molinari: I think George’s legacy is that he probably was mayor at the most difficult time in the city’s political history because it didn’t know what it was. Remember, District Elections passed. District Elections was in affect for, what, three years? Then we went back to city-wide elections. The city didn’t know what it wanted, and he was caught up in this whole transition of liberal vs conservative and gay rights, and all of this was happening. And he had started out helping. This “Mayor of the People”. Driving his own car, and all of a sudden everybody was not responding to this well. In fact, people were criticizing him. Finally he got the limousine. He should have gotten the limousine from the first day. I never really understood what he was trying to prove. When we went through the Craft Strike, he was in his office playing cards with Corey Busch and others. There was a lot of symbolic stuff that probably didn’t redound too well, but he had a difficult time over a very difficult political period. We went through strikes. We went through all sorts of things, and he was a glue. I never saw George lose his temper in public. I never saw him, in fact the only time I ever saw him lose his temper was that night with Joe Mazzola out at the Big Rig Playground. And he tried, I think, in his own way to bring people together. Some people you can never bring along. You’re never gonna bring a Dan White along, you’re never gonna bring a Barbagelata along. But he did have a way of… I think even at the end, begrudgingly, Quentin respected him