San Francisco-Style Democrat

I'm annoyed that Bush nominated Linda Chavez to his Cabinet. I don't like her. Why? Consider these quotes from her 1986 Senate campaign versus Barbara Mikulski:

• "We are as different as two people can be," said Chavez. "Barbara Mikulski is a San Francisco-style Democrat -- people are going to reject her brand of liberalism . . . . Barbara can run but she cannot hide."
  --Tom Kenworthy, Michel McQueen, "Schaefer, Mikulski Win in Md.; GOP Nominates Chavez for Senate Race; Turnout Is Modest", The Washington Post, September 10, 1986, p. A1.

  
  

• A political insider says:
  ''Mikulski is the one Democrat who gives the Republicans hope for winning. . . . Her life style, her conduct with the staff is very much on the order of Bella Abzug. That's not going to go very far with Roman Catholics and some other Maryland voters.''
  --John Dillin, "Battle lines set for party struggle to control Senate", The Christian Science Monitor, September 11, 1986, p. 3.

  
  

• Linda Chavez, the Republican nominee in the nation's sole women-only Senate race, said Wednesday she is more in tune with Maryland's voters because she is a mother with a mother's perspective on issues such as war and peace and illegal drugs.
  ....
  Talking with reporters later in the White House driveway, Chavez said the fact that she is married, while Mikulski has never been, is not an issue.
  ....
  As a mother, she said, "I think that I have a perspective which I think is common to people in the state of Maryland, and I'm not sure she does. ...
  ....
  In other comments, Chavez said she merely was using "a political term" when she referred to Mikulski on election night as "a San Francisco-style, George McGovern, liberal Democrat.""I think it was very clear from what I said last night _ and I have tapes of it _ that we were talking about philosophical differences and that she represents the leftward shift of the national Democratic Party," Chavez said.
  --Terence P. Hunt, "Motherhood Becomes Issue in Woman-Vs.-Woman Senate Race", Associated Press, September 10, 1986.

  
  

I'll leave it to the reader to decide the connotation of "San Francisco-style" and "life style" in this context. But I was annoyed that my Google search for 'San Francisco-style Democrat' turned up nary a mention of this controversy that I remember quite vividly. I don't think anyone will bring this up in her confirmation, or that it would hold things up anyway. But at least as soon as Google indexes this page, people will be able to search for these quotes.