Oakland Could Elect a Moderate Mayor Instead of Another Woke Ideologue

As you probably remember, Mayor Sheng Thao of Oakland was recalled last November after an FBI raid of her home last year. Thao had denied any wrongdoing but she was indicted in January. All of that set up a special election to replace Thao which will take place tomorrow. There are about a dozen candidates in the race but at this point it appears there are really just two with a chance to win.

The candidate embraced by the Democratic establishment and the unions is Barbara Lee, who represented Oakland in congress for nearly 30 years.

During the nearly three decades Barbara Lee represented Oakland in Congress, she often proudly referred to serving the “wokest district in the nation.”…

Lee is banking on woke Oakland supporting her as it always has, with 80% of the vote through her time in Congress…

Last 3/7 November, 60% of voters supported the Thao recall. Lee opposed the recall — because she said she opposes recalls on principle. Three months later, at the urging of top labor union leaders fearful of a less labor-friendly alternative, she announced she wanted the job.

Given her history in the area and her support from the Democratic establishment, this should have been a relatively easy gig for Lee. But things really have changed a bit in the Bay Area, even in deep blue Oakland. The city has been suffering a lot in the past few years, arguably because of the failures of its woke ideologues.

The mayoral contest comes at a brutal time for Oakland. Crime is rampant, businesses are pulling out of the city, and residents are increasingly frustrated by brazen crimes such as “ram raiding”—crashing cars into store entrances to loot—and “sideshows”—stunt drivers taking over streets to do doughnuts. To top it off, the city’s major league teams—Raiders, A’s, and Warriors—have all fled, a symbol of Oakland’s precipitous decline…

Thao’s tenure in the top job has been, by any measure, a complete disaster. Oakland has the slowest 911 response time of any city in the state, and yet, at the end of 2023, a council member discovered that the city had failed to process nearly 1,000 applications for vacant dispatcher positions. Last year, a city audit revealed that the Thao administration had missed the deadline to apply for a $15 million grant from the state to fight retail theft. Meanwhile, homelessness encampments grew everywhere and prostitutes allegedly solicited customers in front of elementary schools. To top it off, last year, the town’s storied baseball team finally left town, the third and last of the city’s professional sports teams to do so.

During Thao’s first year in office, in packed town halls, voters lined up to chew her out as well as the DA and members of the city council. Thao acknowledged their concerns but her response was inept to the point of self-parody. She fired the popular police chief, LeRonne Armstrong, over allegations—which he was later cleared of—of mishandling two police misconduct cases, and failed to replace him for more than a year.

Thao’s calamitous legacy is a liability for Lee, who is backed by many of her old supporters.

The other candidate who stands the best chance is Loren Taylor. Taylor lost to Sheng Thao in the 2022 election by about 700 votes. He’s also a Democrat but a more moderate one. He doesn’t talk about wokeism. Instead he talks about basic government competency.

In one interview, he spoke at length about advocating for “a true performance management system” in city government. But in Oakland, where mainstream politicians are unafraid to associate themselves with the legacy of the Black Panther Party, which was founded in the city, while businesses flee town and crater-sized potholes go unfilled, Taylor’s centrist pragmatism represents an indictment of the status quo.

And that kind of talk has earned him some support, including an endorsement from the SF Chronicle.

Unlike San Francisco, Oakland is suffering under the weight of unfunded pension liabilities to the tune of $1.2 billion. Unaffordable IOUs to workers won’t be resolved without the will to undertake tough negotiations. Some in Oakland argue that Lee’s support from labor makes her the perfect candidate to lead such talks. But it’s hard not to be skeptical. After a lifetime spent earning the support of labor, does Lee really want to end her career by twisting arms?

Taylor, meanwhile, has firm but reasonable ideas for balancing Oakland’s budget — including refinancing pension debt and furloughs and pay cuts for city workers. Instead of competing for more outside dollars, his focus would be on better governance and growing the city’s tax base with business-friendly policies. He has a deep understanding of the broader Bay Area housing crisis and would seek ways to streamline development so Oakland does its share, while benefiting from the jobs and property taxes that building more residences could provide…

Taylor speaks fluently about the challenges Oakland faces. While he may not have Lee’s star power, his thoughtful and solutions-oriented demeanor lead us to believe he’d be adept at brokering consensus with differing constituencies.

A measure of competence, that’s Taylor’s main selling point. Can an appeal to competence compete with wokeness and name recognition in one of California’s bluest cities. That’s what we’re about to find out.