American politician; Green party candidate, Matt Gonzalez had a chance of becoming the first Green Party mayor of a major US city, but lost the election to his opponent in a closely watched election run-off held on December 9, 2003. Gonzales ran against the favored candidate Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who is heir to the term-limited incumbent Willie Brown. A former public defender, Gonzalez once played bass in a punk rock band. Elected to the city’s board of supervisors on December 12, 2000 during the dotcom boom, he left the Democratic Party when he became disillusioned with the party’s campaign tactics. He helped lead the charge against upscale real estate development but yet has managed to coax campaign contributions from two of the city’s largest developers. In his mayoral race, he has raised $300,000, an amount that pales by comparison to his opponent’s $3 million. The candidate doesn’t own a car and wants to make San Francisco “a laboratory for what government will look like under Green leadership.” Gonzalez graduated from Columbia University in 1987, and, in 1990, he received his J.D. from Stanford Law School. He then worked as a trial lawyer in the public defender’s office for ten years. In 1999, he waged an unsuccessful bid for election to District Attorney.
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