Here's the uncomfortable truth none of these candidates want to say out loud: California's housing crisis is not a mystery. It's the entirely predictable result of decades of government-created barriers to building. CEQA abuse, insane permitting timelines, local zoning that treats a four-story apartment building like a nuclear reactor — these are policy choices, not acts of God.

So when candidates sit down for high-profile interviews and talk about housing, the only question that matters is: what are you going to eliminate? Not what new program will you create. Not what new agency will you fund. What existing obstacle — beloved by incumbents, donors, and NIMBYs alike — will you actually tear down?

The track record here is abysmal. Sacramento has passed housing bills almost every year for the last decade. SB 35, SB 9, SB 10, the Builder's Remedy — the alphabet soup keeps growing, and yet California still has a deficit of roughly 2.5 million homes. The permits-per-capita numbers remain embarrassing compared to Texas, Florida, and basically every state that doesn't treat housing construction like an ideological war.

What San Francisco residents — and Californians broadly — need isn't another visionary with a whiteboard. It's a governor willing to make enemies. Willing to override local obstruction. Willing to say that your neighborhood's "character" doesn't outweigh someone else's right to have a roof over their head at a price that doesn't require a tech salary.

We'll be watching what these candidates actually propose. But forgive us if we don't hold our breath. In California politics, talking about housing is easy. Building it is apparently impossible.