Matt Gonzalez Quotes

You don’t have to be wealthy to run for mayor. I’m a Green Party candidate running for mayor and I’m being taken seriously.

When you have a democratically elected president of Iran you don’t topple him for the Shah. You don’t help topple Arbenz in Guatemala. You don’t do what we did in Vietnam, etc.

When I got into politics, it was a shock. People promise all sorts of things and then never deliver.

This notion that we’re going to prop up foreign governments, that we’re going to invade other countries for some kind of perceived benefit where we’re going to install somebody who’s going to be supportive of American interests or American corporate private interests needs to stop.

This idea that once you get into politics… you are now signed up for lifelong duty being in elective office, makes a fundamental error – and that is believing that the only way you can hold progressive views and implement them is in elective office.

There is a preliminary belief that Tuolumne River water could be captured by other reservoirs that are downstream from Hetch Hetchy, the Cherry and Don Pedro reservoirs for instance. Furthermore, any shortfalls could be supplied via greater conservation efforts, newly discovered groundwater supplies, and water purchases when necessary.

Some types of environmental restoration projects are well-known; restored wetlands, for instance, or coal mine reclamation projects. Recently though, larger dam removal projects have started, a number of them in Washington state.

Running for office is important, and you don’t really need more than to be right on the issues, and to be able to articulate what it is you believe. You don’t need a certain background. You don’t need to be a lawyer. You don’t need to have some professional degree.

If you run for mayor, people say you’re being egotistical. If you decide you won’t run for mayor, people say you’re being self-centered and egotistical.

If you engage people honestly, and you’re willing to do the leg work, people will respond to that.

If you are doing well, your business will pay more in tax; if you’re not doing well, you pay less.

I’ve run for office, and I’ve stood on street corners, while people walked by me and didn’t want to talk to me, and did not think I was a credible candidate. And then four years later, I was nearly elected mayor of San Francisco, so I know what it takes.

I think when judges are in the position of authority, they really get bent out of shape when someone tells them they acted inappropriately.

I think a lot of politicians, rightfully so, understand that their political futures are tied to how many times people see their names in print. The press is so accustomed to politicians wanting those things, it’s a surprise when somebody’s like, ‘Whatever, I’m not really worried about those things.’

I really am disappointed when I run into people who are angry I’m leaving office.

I had tried painting, mostly to give myself a greater appreciation of the craft and to inform how I looked at paintings. That led to collaging some of the work I had done on paper, and I found myself mixing in found pieces as well.

Chard and kale are my favorite these days.

At some point the rhetoric runs out, and we have to ask ourselves, ‘Are we simply going to standby while somebody’s rhetoric is good, but their actions are so lousy?’ Are we going to stand up for that?

As a young boy I won a few dollars in 1972 when Riva Ridge won the Kentucky Derby. I had overheard someone say he was going to win, and I guess that made an impression on me.