PRESIDENT BUSH has yet to set foot in San Francisco since taking office 33 months ago. Although he’s visiting Southern California to inspect the wildfire devastation, the itinerary doesn’t include a detour north. Which is unfortunate. San Franciscans go to the polls today to choose a new mayor, and few cities stage a better political circus. You can’t blame the president for keeping his distance from Northern California’s “Babylon by the Bay.” Bush received only 16.2 percent of the vote in San Francisco County, half his percentage in Los Angeles County (statewide, Bush’s support was 41.7 percent). San Franciscans were just as hostile to the Governator. Arnold Schwarzenegger received only 19 percent of the county vote in last month’s recall; statewide, he got 48.6 percent. Eighty percent of the county voted to keep Gray Davis in office. Four out of five San Franciscans agree: They’re out of touch with the rest of California.

Yet, if the polls stay to form, this liberal bastion is about to turn right–and to a candidate who’s shunned liberal orthodoxy–to solve one of its most vexing social problems.