Bush Is First pResident In 75 Years To Have NEVER Visited San Francisco

[matcom]

<snip>

Washington -- Presidential visits to San Francisco have been a tradition since Rutherford Hayes lunched at the Cliff House in 1880.

Presidents arrived by stagecoach and jet. One was shot at. Another died. In all, 20 presidents have visited the city, including every chief executive for the past 75 years.

Except George W. Bush.

Now in the fifth year of his presidency, Bush has yet to set a foot in the city that was home to his childhood baseball idol, Willie Mays, and shows no inclination to do so. The White House is planning a California visit by the end of the month, and San Francisco is not on the itinerary.

San Francisco, with roughly three-quarters of a million residents, is the only city among the nation's 25 largest that has not been host for a Bush presidential visit. If he avoids San Francisco for the rest of his term, he will be the first president not to visit since Calvin Coolidge, and only the second in more than a century.

The reason seems plain to even casual observers of American politics.

San Francisco is as politically, culturally and geographically distant from the president as anyplace in America. Eighty-four percent of the city's voters cast ballots against Bush in 2000, and 85 percent voted against him in 2004. The city has voted Democratic in 12 consecutive presidential elections.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/08/21/MNGA5EB32N1.DTL