Oakland (Special to ZennieReport.com) – The much talked about political attacks on those in Oakland who call themselves “progressive” or who are identified as such by other political observers, had a look that it was going to succeed and with flying colors. But, if one eliminates the victorious recall votes against Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao and Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, the picture looks different. The reasons have to do with 1) backing, 2) ground game, and 3) quality of the challenger.
The 2024 Oakland Election Votes Thus Far
Here’s how the major Oakland City Council races look thus far. Important to keep in mind that this is from the Friday, November 15th computer run, and the next is expected on Wednesday, November 20th. I also did reach out to Alameda County Registrar Tim Dupuis, but have not received a response as of yet. You may be thinking Tim’s smarting from our “Ted Talk” (his words) style interview during 2022, but I hope not. If so, I think Tim did the public a welcome service by being transparent. He took all of my questions and answered them live – not bad. If you’re wondering what I’m referring to, it’s here if you have the time and a good cup of tea (or maybe a smooth drink):
That sets the tone for this year’s election races. While some problem specific to rank choice voting was feared (and I am still not trusting of the software used) the majority of the races do not have close calls. Let’s look at where we are.
Oakland City Council District One 2024 Race
Zac Unger vs. Len Rafael: 22,048 votes for Zac against just 4,261 for Len is a trouncing, sad to say for my friend. Even though I was never one for Zac as District One rep, and said so, I was completely aware of two things: one, he got started early, and two, he has a built-in ground game formed from his Oakland Fire buddies and other Oakland union members (like Local 1021 of which I was a member when I worked for Elihu Harris).
Plus, he seems like a nice person, but I wasn’t predisposed to like him for the simple reason that Zac never responded to my outreach, which indicates a built-in hostility that has to be built on racism because I never met the guy. But when I visited his website is the point at which I elected to go to bat against him. Why?
Because Zac’s responses looked canned, almost as if someone wrote them for him, or he got them from some friend or associate. We need people as representatives who are willing and open to considering new legislation and have a love for critical thinking. Zac was neither of those from my observation, and since he did not want to get to know me, or me to meet him, I figured that I had an open door to vent about his shortcomings because he never tried to establish a relationship with me as Oakland Blogger and Vlogger. Now, we have to deal with his shortcomings. I don’t ever expect him to be big enough to return my call and set an interview (unlike other candidates) and I have been at this for 30 years. And that’s that.
What Zac Unger is to me is another one of those progressive-sensitive types who can’t stand to be called out and can’t disagree and bring his A-game to a true socratic debate. We’ve had too many of that kind of person; vastly different from the elected officials of years gone by like the great District Four Councilmember Richard (“Dick”) Spees. Dick Spees was a person you could disagree with and he never took it personally because (at least for me) it was not. That was also true (from my experience) for Sheila Jordan, Alameda County Supervisor Don Perata (the focus of this fun interview from 2010),
and to her credit, then Oakland City Council District 4 rep and later Mayor of Oakland, Jean Quan:
So, I have a lot of history in Oakland. I’ve seen a lot of candidates and electeds come and so, and I formed my own media brand of “as-I-see-it” reporting that in the Internet space is called “blogging” or if video, then “vlogging”, but in print is referred to as an “op-ed” for opinion editorial. And it’s from that place that I got behind my friend Len Rafael against Mr. Unger.
See, Len and I can disagree and argue, but we’re good friends, and so there’s never a problem. Len can test a person who’s not willing to deeply consider an idea, and I think it’s that style – and his having to reach beyond his normally closed-in life as husband and family man and accountant – that cost him what could have been a win.
The problem is that Len didn’t tap into the unions, and that may be because part of his ideology (not mine) can be seen as republican and anti-union. I have talked with Len about that, but he is who he is. He’s not a fan of government spending, whereas I see it as a way to create jobs, because that’s what it does.
But, what I do like about Len is he’s willing to have an exchange, explain why he’s right, but then consider why you may be more right. And that’s a good thing. That makes for good policy formation, arguing. I’m serious. Arguing is the best way to find out if a person really knows their stuff. Back to the election.
If you’re wondering about Edward C. Frank, he has really interesting ideas that I should have really focused on, but still can, like this one regarding Universal Health Care:
A pie-in-the-sky dream of mine is to work toward Oakland being a leader in providing Universal Child Care to its residents. As a stay-at-home Dad, I had the privilege of sending my sons to daycare for 4-5 hours, 3-4 days a week. This allowed me the opportunity to focus on self-care, which, in turn, made me a better parent to my sons, a stronger partner for my wife, and a more active and present community member. For other families it could allow parents to return to the workforce, employ more Oaklanders as childcare providers, and help to nurture and care for the next generation of young people in our Town.
Oakland City Council District Three
Carroll Fife is at 11,088 versus 7,847, and has won (unofficially) re-election as Oakland City Council District Three rep. This is a race I stayed out of opining on at first. However, I did interview a number of candidates, but unfortunately missed Ms. Fife. Carroll is another one of those very sensitive progressive types I call “progressive-sentitive” because in my case she misunderstands what I am saying way too often and assumes that I am “right-wing”, which I find insulting and low-rent. Aside from the fact that it’s not true.
What is true is that Carroll Fife was regional director of an organization that formed a small army of not-well-meaning people over to march by my long-time friend Phil Tagami’s house back four years ago, leading me to make this vlog:
Carroll Fife and I share the same ideas, but my way of getting to the objective of achieving them involves using proven legislation that Councilmember Fife never considers and studies, specifically tax increment financing. I have not talked with her about this in detail (and I have tried to, but realized she doesn’t want to talk to me, so be it because I am not going away) But an overview read is she gets hung up on the idea that wealth has to come from a building developed by a billionaire – which, by the way, is an over-simplication of the process of development.
(Oh. And on the matter of “not talking” its a rather silly practice based on a 20th Century idea of how media works. It doesn’t work in the 21st Century. )
Anyway, I interviewed Warren Logan, fellow graduate of the Department of City Planning Masters Degree Program at the University of California at Berkeley, home of the best academic years of my life. In our interview, Warren was every bit the man who has a complete intellectual command of Oakland’s problems and is willing to talk about out-of-the-box solutions. Here’s my interview with him:
So, why didn’t Warren beat Carroll? Well, several reasons. First, he’s not female, and one has to go back a very long way to identify the last male representative of District Three. Before Carroll, there was Lynette Gibson-McElhaney, and Nancy Nadel before her and for a long time, from 1996 to 2012. Then there was Nancy Nadel, then Natalie Bayton, and Aleta Cannon before her. So, we’ve already gone back deep into the 20th Century, and we find that each D3 Rep has been a woman. Why?
I have to say I think it’s because each female candidate just plain wanted it more, and had already established a ground game. Now here’s where Lynette Gibson-McElhaney disagrees with me. The former D3 Rep says “I think it’s just that each one was known”. In her case, Lynette believes the winning campaigners just worked harder. That was certainly true for Gibson-McElhaney, and she reminded me that she “went through nine (ranked choice voting) rounds” before she won her last election race.
She also talked to everyone and could be seen chasing down people along Lake Merritt on any given Saturday. In fact, she and I had our interview after one of her rounds:
In the case of Logan, or any of the other District Three candidates, none of them had a large, local, social media following. By contrast, Carroll has one of effective size, although it doesn’t put her at the influencer level all by itself. If Warren had a social media following of, say, 50,000 and put out video content daily, he would have faired better and even won.
The fact of the matter is that one needs to make there media or call Zennie62Media and we will interview you, no charge. That’s how D3 Candidate Michelle Hadley came to organize this very fun talk between District 3 candidates not named Carroll Fife or Warren Logan:
District Five Oakland City Council Race
Here’s where Lynette’s comment that “it’s hard to beat an incumbent” comes into play as much as anything else. Carroll Fife has name recognition from her position, and so does Noel Gallo. What’s interesting is the enormous buzz that Erin Armstrong received but failed to translate into votes.
| Noel Gallo | 6,301 | 52.66 % |
|---|---|---|
| Erin Armstrong | 3,783 | 31.62 % |
| Dominic Prado | 1,881 | 15.72 % |
Now Noel is the incumbent, but I have to ask the question: did he also win again because he’s Latino in a Latino district? In our interview, Erin Armstrong, his challenger, said she did not believe that was a factor. But in hindsight, it’s hard to see that ethnicity is not one.
District Seven Oakland City Council Race
This is a surprising development, all things considered. But at second glance, it makes a lot of sense:
| KEN HOUSTON | 6130 | 52.15 % |
| IRIS MERRIOUNS | 5624 | 47.85 % |
Rank Choice voting still has Ken up over the initial favorite to win, Iris Merriouns. Why? Well, Merika Goolsby and Marcie Hodge both gave the majority of votes to Ken over Iris, according to the Registrar’s runs. What’s so surprising is that Ken started his campaign late – but then so did Iris. Once it came down to an even starting point, the simple fact that Ken Houston has ran for office in Oakland (At Large and Mayor) before, and literally knows everyone, especially in District 7, took over.
Plus, Ken’s a hoot and an energetic and funny guy. Now, think that’s not going to translate to an understanding of policy problems, but I disagree. At the end of the day, Ken knows how to explain matters to those who may feel talked down to. He doesn’t do that.
And I must add that while she did not come close, Marcie Hodge did present herself as true a public executive and should make another run for office, soon. Here’s my interview with her:
At-Large Oakland City Council Race
| CRISTINA “TINA” TOSTADO | 0 | 0.00 % |
| CHARLENE WANG | 0 | 0.00 % |
| MINDY RUTH PECHENUK | 0 | 0.00 % |
| ROWENA BROWN | 70272 | 56.82 % |
| NANCY SIDEBOTHAM | 0 | 0.00 % |
| LERONNE L. ARMSTRONG | 53392 | 43.18 % |
| FABIAN ROBINSON | 0 | 0.00 % |
| SHAWN DANINO | 0 | 0.00 % |
| KANITHA MATOURY | 0 | 0.00 % |
| SELIKA THOMAS |
So what put Rowena on top? This dramatically-large transfer of votes from Charlene Wang to Rowena. Fully 49.5 percent of the total second choice votes from those who picked Charlene first. Have a look:
| CHARLENE WANG | ROWENA BROWN | 19434 | 1 | 19434 |
| CHARLENE WANG | LERONNE L. ARMSTRONG | 9473 | 1 | 9473 |
| CHARLENE WANG | EXHAUSTED | 9741 | 1 | 9741 |
| CHARLENE WANG | OVERVOTES | 608 | 1 | 608 |
The Reason Why Charlene Wang’s RCV Votes Went To Rowena Brown And Not LeRonne Armstrong
As the numbers show, and was already stated, 49 percent of the second choice votes for those who picked Charlene Wang as number one pick, went to Rowena Brown.
But why Charlene and not LeRonne? At first, I believed a number of people actually saw the former Chief of Police as not as progressive as Brown. Or, to put it another way, those who picked Ms. Wang were most likely to see Ms. Brown as like her. Both are in the same age bracket, and both are politically minded lesbian Oaklanders.
But that’s not the reason. A friend of mine who played an insider role in a number of Oakland campaigns told me that Wang actually approached the former Oakland Police Chief and asked him to join her in a rank choice voting team up. How that works is each candidate promotes the other, saying if you don’t want to vote for me as number one, vote for the other and pick me as your number two.
Well, guess what? LeRonne said “no”, according to my reliable friend.
Instead, LeRonne too-late teamed up with Rowena and Kanitha Matouri, but the result was ineffective for one main reason: Rowena’s supporters were less likely to pick LeRonne as their number two, so he would get little from the pairing. But he believed the dual partnership would work; the stats say the opposite.
Would the outcome have been different if LeRonne went with Charlene? Well, and because Charlene had a large voting block to share, and she did not have a wave of supporters that avoided Armstrong.
California AG Rob Bonta Comes To Rowena Brown’s Rescue
The similarities stop when one considers that Ms. Brown worked for Loren Taylor, and had strong assistance from Oakland unions. But what I believe really put Brown ahead was this:
Grand Lake Theater Owner Allen Michaan got a call from California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who asked if Allen would put Rowena’s name on the theater marquee. Since Bonta had helped Michaan by crafting legislation to save the Antique Industry in the East Bay, Allen told me he was only too happy to put Rowena’s name on the Grand Lake Theater Marquee for all to see. That’s different from what Ms. Brown told me earlier when I asked her about how her name got on the Grand Lake Marquee, which was “I have a personal relationship with Allen Michaan”. I remarked that I’ve known Allen since 1993; he’s a good man.
By the way, if you’ve never meet Rowena or Charlene, or Chief Armstrong, here are my interviews with each one of them:
The Oakland City Attorney Race
| Ryan Richardson | 78,628 | 58.78 % |
|---|---|---|
| Brenda Harbin-Forte | 55,141 | 41.22 % |
Ryan Richardson is the new Oakland City Attorney-Elect. Richardson withstood a political attack with press releases sent to organizations like Zennie62Media, and in an attempt to conduct an “October Surprise”. The reason Ryan won is the side attacking him and supporting Judge Brenda Harbin-Forte failed to make a clear case for replacing him.
Also, on balance, his boss, Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker has done an excellent job as the City’s lawyer. It’s important to have someone who has institutional memory, and Ryan is that person.
Dividing Oakland Donald Trump Style Must Stop
Whoever came up with the idea of dividing Oakland Democrats via made up metrics and opinions should be made the focus of ridicule in the public square. The fact is the matter is that way of thinking, via political divisions, causes public officials to focus on the wrong topics. Donald Trump started that, and now we have Democrats doing that to each other. I say that anyone who takes that strategic political path should have to leave the party.