‘Too Legit to Quit’: Wild Ad Brings Hammertime to San Francisco Politics

ABC News’ Katie Bosland reports:

What do MC Hammer’s signature pants and early 90s hits have in common with the 1st Asian-American Mayor in San Francisco’s history? Until yesterday, very little, but now Hammer and many other big-names in San Francisco are giving voters a reason to think that Mayor Ed Lee is, well, ‘Too Legit to Quit.’

M.C. Hammer and a host of San Franciscans and stars, including Will.i.am, San Francisco Giants pitcher Brian Wilson, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone and former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown team up to tell voters to “Fear the Mustache” and to vote for Ed Lee on November 8th.

Making a play off of the infamous “ Fear the Beard“ slogan of the Giants’ Wilson, the celebrities donned orange T-shirts with “Fear the Mustache” emblazoned on them, danced, held up pictures of the current interim mayor Ed Lee, and spliced in many of San Francisco’s famous landmarks.

Hammer debuted the ad via Twitter at 9 a.m., tweeting, “Bringing back a classic! Ed Lee is 2 Legit 2 Quit.” Brian Wilson also tweeted the link saying ”Ed Lee. For SF Mayor. Do It Now.”

Despite the high profile endorsements and appearance of Lee in the view, the ad makes clear that it is not officially endorsed by the Lee campaign, but was instead commissioned by an outside group that supports him.

In a field with 16 candidates, Aaron McClear, a spokesman for the independent expenditure group behind the ad called San Franciscans for Jobs and Good Government says they “really were looking for a creative way to cut through the clutter” and not just go with the typical candidate with the person endorsing type press-conference.

McClear says that in a city with 30,000 tech jobs, Ed Lee has passed important incentives to keep start-ups in the city (including Twitter – who’s co-founder Biz Stone is featured in the video).

Interim Mayor Ed Lee has held the office since he was appointed this past January to complete Mayor and Current Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newson’s term. Monday, the AG of San Francisco opened up his second investigation into the activity of Lee’s campaign supporters, which Lee has since denied, according to reports in the the San Francisco Chronicle.