Politics makes strange bedfellows. San Francisco politics makes absolutely shameless ones.

Two of the city's most prominent billionaires spent a combined $1.5 million trying to defeat Daniel Lurie during last year's mayoral race. They backed other candidates, funded opposition efforts, and made it abundantly clear they didn't want the guy anywhere near Room 200.

Fast forward a few months, and those same billionaires are now pouring millions into supporting Lurie's policy agenda. That's not a typo. Millions — with an 'm' — flowing from the same wallets that tried to kneecap his campaign.

Let's be clear about what this is: raw transactional politics. When the election didn't go their way, these donors didn't retreat to lick their wounds. They pivoted. Because in San Francisco, influence isn't about ideology — it's about access. And if you're sitting on a few billion dollars, you can afford to play both sides of the table.

Now, there's a charitable reading here. Maybe these billionaires genuinely looked at Lurie's governing priorities and found common ground. Maybe the campaign was personal and the policy is pragmatic. Politics is the art of the possible, after all.

But the less charitable — and frankly more realistic — reading is that this is just how the city's donor class operates. They spend to win, and when they lose, they spend to shape the winner. Either way, their money talks.

The deeper problem isn't that rich people donate to politicians. That's every city in America. The problem is the scale. When a handful of individuals can spend seven figures opposing a candidate and then seven figures backing his agenda, it raises a basic question: whose city is this, really?

Lurie campaigned as something of an outsider — a candidate who would shake up City Hall's entrenched interests. Accepting the financial embrace of the very power players who tried to take him down isn't exactly the independence voters thought they were getting.

San Franciscans deserve a government that answers to residents, not to whoever writes the biggest check this quarter. Whether you voted for Lurie or not, that principle shouldn't be for sale.