political campaigns

City Council District 4 Candidates Talk – But do they have anything to say?

City Council District 4 Candidates Talk – But do they have anything to say? Politics No Responses »

Oct 062012

The Chamber of Commerce and the League of Women’s Voters had a forum on Sep. 25th for San Leandro City Council candidates. Candidates gave a short opening and closing statements, and answered written questions from audience members. If anyone had any doubt that Chris Crow is the only qualified candidate for District 4, watching the videos below will erase them.

If you don’t want to listen to everything, you can sum up their positions as:

Chris Crow: Vote for me because I have a concrete plan to raise revenue, manage the budget and push economic development.

Justin Hutchinson: Vote for me because I’m married with four children and have lived all my life in Washington Manor. Plus I’m a security executive at Target so I can give the police some tips on how to do their jobs.

Darlene Daevu: Vote for me because I have an MBA from Golden Gate University.

Benny Lee: Vote for me because I will tell you whatever it is I think you want to hear. Just don’t hold me to it next time you see me.

Opening Statements

“What are your specific proposals for raising revenue in the next four years?”

“On police, fire, and employees’ pensions, should there be a top limit of $100,000 or $110,000?”

“What will you do to help retain businesses?”

“What is your position on Measure L?”

“With such high unemployment yet so much construction going on, would you support a program of San Leandro jobs for San Leandro people like Oakland’s recent initiative of Oakland jobs for Oakland people?”

“As an elected Councilmember, how would you assure that events like tonight have large attendance of students, especially high schools?”

“What would you do to bring the many communities San Leandro together?”

Closing Statements

Note: The candidates for all the Districts were on the same panel. These videos have been edited to only include the answers from District 4 candidates. The order here does not reflect the order on which the questions were asked. The somewhat tongue-in-chick summaries are mine 🙂

Chris Crow, My Candidate for San Leandro City Council

Chris Crow, My Candidate for San Leandro City Council People, Politics No Responses »

Sep 192012

It’s no secret that I support Chris Crow for City Council. To many people, however, it is surprising – though I’m not entirely sure why.

It’s true, when I first met Chris in the comments area of San Leandro Patch, and later on my San Leandro Talk Facebook page, I wasn’t his biggest fan. I thought he was cocky, sort of a know-it-all, and let his enthusiasm get ahead of fact-checking or analysis. We argued a lot.

My opinion of him started changing when I took a greater interest in the Bal Theater’s struggles with City Hall. As my kids were out of town for the summer, I went to a Board of Zoning Adjustments (BZA) meeting where they’d be discussing giving Dillman a permit. Chris was representing Dillman before the BZA, laying down the facts and making his argument. He didn’t do the best job, I will admit, he got argumentative and “threatened” the BZA that the Bal would continue operating without a permit, if they didn’t get all they wanted. Still, I was impressed at the fact that here was someone, with no legal background, who had taken the trouble to study what is a very complex issue (zoning law) in order to help a community business thrive. As I learned more about how City Hall was trying to strong-arm Dan Dillman, and how it was basically Chris’ efforts that were keeping them at bay, my respect for Chris grew.

Over time, Chris and I have worked on many issues together. As he became more involved in following the actions of the City Council, its committees and commissions, he alerted me to many deeds that seemed suspicious or harmful to the City. I saw him research complex issues, ranging from the city’s taxing policy to its arbitrary zoning regulations, and come out with surprisingly (to me, at first) insightful analyses and solutions. Even more impressively, I saw him speaking out on issues that matter, standing up to a City staff that can be insulting and condescending, challenging the status quo, even at what seemed like a high political cost (his dismissal from the Planning Commission being a prime example). Chris is one of the few candidates, not just in San Leandro but across the allegedly liberal Bay Area, who is willing to stand up to the Police Department and call them out when they do something wrong. That takes an impressive amount of courage.

I respect a man, a person, who stands up for his beliefs and does what’s right for the community. I respect Chris.

Chris and I don’t always agree. He worked hard to pass Prop 29, a tax on cigarettes, which I opposed for being regressive. He is a big proponent of Bus Rapid Transit, as he thinks it would revitalize South San Leandro. I think it’s bad for riders. But we do agree on what I consider fundamentals: that City Hall’s primary responsibility is towards the citizens of San Leandro, that the government must be transparent and accountable to the community, that human dignity and civil liberties must be respected, and that we shouldn’t allow petty politics to interfere with the quest for the common good.

All this said, Chris is still a bit “green.” Not to policy, which is really what matters, but to politics. I’m hesitant to fault him for that. Good politicians excel at lying well, selling themselves to the highest bidder while pretending to be “of the people.” In that sense, I’m glad that Chris is not a “good politician” – I hope he doesn’t become one.

I know, of course, that once he gets elected, Chris and I will knock heads many times. I will be his harshest critic. It will be Chris’ ability to take criticism constructively which will determine how good a public servant he makes. I have confidence he’ll be great.

And the Mudslinging Begins!

And the Mudslinging Begins! Politics 5 Responses »

Aug 292012

Supporters of City Council candidate accuse opponent of “racism”.

The general rule of political campaigning is to first build up your candidate, and only start attacking his opponent if the latter seems to be winning. It makes little sense to build your opponent’s name recognition early on as voters are likely to remember the name but not necessarily the sin. Negative campaigning, moreover, is not without its dangers; do it wrong and you risk alienating voters.

A popular tactic is to use proxies for your attack: people who are not officially part of your campaign so that you can deny your personal involvement. Unfortunately, voters are smart and usually see through this and interpret any negative attack on one candidate as coming from his main opposition.

Good campaign managers know all this, and Charlie Gilcrest is good. First time candidates, however, often believe they know better and strike out on their own. This seems to be what happened in the case of Gilcrest client Benny Lee, who is running for the District 4 City Council seat against Chris Crow (whom I support) and Darlene Daevu. Lee, a social conservative who registered Democrat for this race, has been very active in his Heron Bay neighborhood, but he lacks name recognition in the city as a whole. His close association with former Mayor Tony Santos, moreover, could be a liability.

As one of his first campaign moves, Lee instigated what could only be described as a dirty attack on Crow. Crow had posted a link on his private Facebook page,only visible to his Facebook friends, to a news story that quoted the mouthpiece for the Chinese Communist party on the poor performance of Chinese athletes at the 2012 Olympic Games. According to the spokesman, Chinese athletes cannot compete against westerners because the latter have bigger chests and heads. Crow found the excuse absurd and ironically commented above the link “so I suppose they really were cheating in 2008 when they took home more Gold medals than the USA or they are the sorest losers in the world.”

Lee, a Chinese-American and Crow’s sole Facebook friend with ties to the players in this saga, apparently saw this comment as an opportunity to play the “race card” and try to portray Crow as “anti-Chinese”. Lee’s friends quickly contacted Steven Tavares, a friendly blogger, and concocted a story about how the Chinese community was outraged at Crow’s remarks. As proof, Tavares quoted several Lee supporters, without identifying them as such. “He is accusing every Chinese in the world of being cheaters” said Hendy Wijaya (aka Hendy Huang), insisting Crow withdraw from the race. “When someone coughs up something like that, the heart and mind is discriminating” stated Eduardo Collaco. Many anonymous comments followed calling Crow a racist.

Dirty and silly campaign tactics are, unfortunately, not new to San Leandro nor to Lee’s cohorts in particular. In 2010, Lee, Wijaya and Collaco, along with Tavares, were among the biggest supporters of ex-Mayor Tony Santos on his bid for re-election. Tavares published story after story demonizing Santos’ main opponent, now Mayor Steven Cassidy. Hendy Huang, meanwhile, filed a complaint against Cassidy with the Fair Political Practices Commission alleging Cassidy broke the law by wearing a campaign t-shirt while being “dunked” at a school festival (Huang, as an aside, tried to have the 9th grade campus named after himself). The complaint was promptly dismissed. Santos himself tried to portray Cassidy as racist by suggesting that some anti-Asian/anti-Santos graffiti found in Heron Bay was campaign related. Lee, meanwhile, has faithfully followed Santos on the anti-rank choice voting campaign he started after losing re-election. Santos is now paying Lee back by being a vocal participant in the attacks against Chris Crow.

While Crow should not be surprised at the vitriol that characters like Santos and Wijaya/Huang will show throughout the campaign, he is perplexed about the allegations of racial bias against Asians. Crow grew up in an Asian-American household; his grandmother escaped North Korea after losing her whole family in the war. He’s lived his whole life in post-integration San Leandro and his circle of friends include people of all races and colors. His proudest accomplishment is having founded “Team Craig“, an organization which first fundraised to help pay for the medical needs of a Filipino-American friend with cancer, and that now provides scholarships to High School students in Craig’s honor. Perhaps more poignantly, Crow coaches wrestling at the High School, where most of the team is composed of Asian-Americans. Despite their alleged “small chests and heads”, Crow believes several have the potential to win gold medals at the Olympics, regardless of what any Chinese Communist Mouthpieces might say.

AD 18: Joel Young – the Candidate I Really Don’t Want to Win

AD 18: Joel Young – the Candidate I Really Don’t Want to Win Politics 8 Responses »

May 072012

Joel Young

He is petty, lacks ideas and beat up his ex-girlfriend. Why is he running?

Joel Young was the first candidate for Assembly to reach out to me last year Until then, I hadn’t really thought much about who was running. I didn’t know anything about Young, so I did what I’d do before meeting anyone: I googled him. Young can only hope that voters don’t take that step. If they do, they will come across story after story about Young’s “altercation” with a former girlfriend, one that left her with injuries to her face and neck deemed consistent with domestic violence. The story is pretty sordid. The woman walked into Young’s apartment and found him in bed with another woman. She yelled and slapped him. She says he responded by slapping her forcefully and cranking her head on the bed repeatedly. He says it was self-defense. According to a sworn statement by the emergency room physician’s assistant who saw her, her injuries were consistent with domestic violence and not self-defense. Young is a former football player, his ex-girlfriend is 5’2″ and weighs 120 lbs.

When Mike and I met with Young, the story about the extent of her injuries had not yet appeared. At that point I was prone to see it as a “he said/she said” sort of thing. I was willing to give Young the benefit of the doubt, and focus on his merits as an Assembly candidate. I was not impressed.

The first issue had to do with his platform, at the time it was: jobs, education and the environment. The problem is that that’s everyone’s platform and Young had nothing original to say about those issues, no new solutions to offer. It sounded to me like these were issues he’d chosen for their appeal to voters and he was reciting a script when talking about them. I didn’t feel he had any passion for them, or really, for anything, perhaps other than getting elected. This impression was solidified at a recent candidates’ forum where Young answered almost every question by repeating the mantra “jobs, jobs, jobs” – but never once intimating how he would create more jobs in this economy.

During our meeting, I brought up the issue of the domestic violence allegations. He was insistent that the woman in question had never been his girlfriend, just someone he casually dated and had broken up with. He said it was she who beat him, he was just covering himself against her attacks. Not having read about the hospital records, that seemed plausible. But then Young said her allegations were politically motivated – which made much less sense.

I let Joel know that I am a human rights activist and that my biggest concern is about protecting civil liberties. This brought the conversation to the issue of freedom of expression and Joel’s conviction that we should do away with anonymity on the internet. You see, the story about the domestic violence incident was “broken” by indybay and was not signed. Joel saw that as reason enough to do away with the first amendment protections on anonymous speech. I tried to convince him otherwise, explain to him the importance of anonymous speech, the risks that victims and whistleblowers experience if they are forced to reveal their identities. He didn’t get, he wouldn’t get it, what happened to him was the only thing that mattered.

I’m sure that it will come as no surprise that I will not support someone who is willing to restrict freedom of speech. But I also will not support someone who will use his power as a legislator to protect his own interests, who puts pettiness ahead of public policy, who see himself as more important than the people he represents. I won’t support someone who has no principles.

After the scandal, Joel Young lost the support of many of his backers. He was seen as the heir apparent of termed-out Assemblyman Sandré Swanson, but Swanson quickly distanced himself from Young. Kathy Neal, another prominent supporter, was so appalled by Young’s behavior that she almost threw her hat into the Assembly race. His prodigious fundraising, slowed down significantly. But Young still retains a lot of support from within the African American community and parts of Labor. Sharon Cornu, the former Secretary-Treasurer at the Alameda Labor Council, has been particularly effective in cajoling endorsements for Young from labor unions and activists.

The issue of the scandal, moreover, has not yet come up in the campaign. Neither Bonta nor Guillen have brought it up in their literature – though surely they will if Young makes it past June. The media hasn’t put much of an emphasis on it – though Young’s most recent mishap, when he threatened and spat on a legislative aid, was covered briefly by the Oakland Tribune.

Needless to say, I recommend that you do not vote for Joel Young. Rob Bonta and Abel Guillen are by far better choices, and my bet is that they also are much less likely to end up in jail.

And the Assembly Mailer War Begins…

And the Assembly Mailer War Begins… Local Elections for Dummies, Politics 3 Responses »

May 042012

Guillen and Bonta visit our mail boxes, but who makes the best impression?

Just got my first mailer from Rob Bonta, after getting four or five from Abel J. Guillen. And for election junkies, here is my analysis 🙂 I’ll post pictures of the mailers after I scan them.

Bonta made a bad move by 1) having his mailers delivered after Guillen’s and 2) having them be very similar colors. Guillen’s is more purplish, but they are too alike. That means that after so much stuff from Guillen, I almost didn’t look at Bonta’s and just assumed it was another piece from Guillen.

Guillen gets brownie points for having gotten his first mailer out first, but loses them for having sent out so many in such a short period of time. Granted, one of them is not from his campaign but from the Nurses association, but it’s so similar in look to the other ones that you wouldn’t be able to tell. Four mailers make him look desperate and begin to make me wonder about his concern for the environment. I think I’m going to scream if I get another mailer from him with my absentee ballot!

Guillen’s mailers wouldn’t be so annoying (and ineffective) if it wasn’t for the fact that they are too similar. Two of them (granted, one is a walking piece but it was dropped in my mailbox) feature the exact same photograph of him. Unfortunately, it’s not even a good photograph. It includes too much of his body and given that he’s a big guy, that takes some attention away from his face. Even worse is that the picture was taken in the sun so he’s squinting. When you are hoping that people trust you, it’s actually important to have them be able to see your eyes.

But the similarity in the look of the mailers also implies a similarity in the message – so there is no incentive, even for an engaged voter, to look carefully at more than one of them, specially as they have nothing that visually grab you.

And even bigger sin, however, is the fact that Abel’s mailers hide his name. The most important part of any campaign is to have voters remember your name (and hopefully in a good way). Expert say that they need to see your name at least five times for it to stick in their minds. That means that the first rule for a mailer is: have the name of the candidate prominently displayed on the first page. And that means that it should be in larger letters and a different font than anything else on the mailer. I truly don’t understand how Abel could have missed something so basic. (Now, this rule can be broken when you make a mailer so compelling that people actually turn the page and/or read it – but a mere picture of the candidate won’t accomplish that).

I wish I didn’t have anything more to criticize, but Abel’s mailers also need to be faulted for their design and content. Abel’s first mailer was an 8 1/2 by 11, double page affair. Inside it had two photographs (including one of just himself, squiting, again) and so much text, in so many different fonts and so many different sections of the page (10 in addition to his logo) that makes it too busy and a nightmare to read. Indeed, I had to force myself to read it, and couldn’t even do it on my first try. I just wanted to close my eyes and run away from it.

His second double-paged mailer was slightly better. It has a nice picture of a beautiful African-American professor (the race matters here, as Abel is trying to show that he has support from all demographics), but the name issue remains. While the text inside is better organized (less prone to give me a headache), there is way too much of it. He has four paragraphs about himself and five points on his accomplishments, plus a quote from a newspaper. Again, I love Abel but even I will not read so much stuff.

The two postcards I’ve gotten from him are better in that they at least have less text but he seems to be unaware of the rule that 1) you should have only three items per mailer (that’s as much as a reader is willing to look at and remember) and 2) you shouldn’t have long paragraphs. Candidates should remember that people get their mailers along with their mail – which means they are flipping through it and unless for some reason they grab them, they won’t do much more than glance at them.

And that may actually be a good thing – for the content on Guillen’s mailers is also repetitious. He mostly talks about what he has accomplished in the Peralta Board, which would be great if he was running for re-election, but he’s running for Assembly. If he’s going to talk about accomplishments, he needs to explicitly divorce at least some of them from the Board.

Now, I’ve only received that one postcard from Rob Bonta, so it may not be fair to compare him to Guillen yet. After all, his mailers to be may be just atrocious. But Bonta does several things right on this postcard. First of all, his name is prominent on both sides of the postcard. It’s in the style of his lawn sign (assuming he has one), which I wonder if is a trend our graphic designer started in Mike’s campaign or existed before that. I might have liked the sign to be a bit larger, though. Bonta should remember older people vote more and some of us can see less and less.

I also wish the picture of hims with his family – all smiling at an ice cream parlor – would be larger. Now, I understand they had space limitations, but a good photo editor would have been able to delete the space between him and his younger children and crop the edges of the picture some more and thus be able to make their faces more prominent (remember those older people with bad eyesight). On the plus side, the picture is wonderful. It’s a perfect setting, it emphasizes the fact that he is a family man and his children and wife are just beautiful so it’s a pleasure to look at them (yeah, I think it’s horrible that beautiful people grab more attention, but it’s a fact of life).

The other side of the mailer is OK. It has two pictures of him. A larger one with firefighters, which is good, and another one sitting with a bunch of kids – which, again, is too small for me to see without effort. He is smart and keeps to the rule of three, listing three accomplishments in which he bolds just a few words (so people can glance at them and get the point) and with less excessive text. I do think, however, that the font should have been darker and the margins had a brighter color that would draw me more to that side. Content wise, one of his three points wasn’t clearly linked to his work as Vice Mayor and showed benefits for people beyond his current stakeholders.

I am curious to see if anyone is interested on this type of campaign analysis, so I would appreciate if you let me know by commenting, or at least “liking” or “sharing” this article on Facebook. Thanks!

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