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Joe Tuman predicted Mayor Quan’s
demise in a posting on Facebook.
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OAKLAND//MAYOR 2014 | The Bay Area News Group editorial last week calling for Oakland Mayor Jean Quan to not seek re-election next year raised eyebrows. Some believed it was overwrought with generalities and useless. Why not just vote her out of office next year, some said. Quan’s detractors leaped upon the assertion her administration has anything other than a disaster.
Joe Tuman, one of Quan’s challengers next election season used the article to lodge similar complaints along with a pitch for campaign contributions. (C’mon, Joe, you know Friday evening is reserved for bad news!)
For Tuman, the editorial was so scathing for Quan that he declared her imminent defeat next year. “It is clear now that we will have a new Mayor in January of 2015. And with your help, I will be that Mayor,” Tuman wrote to his supporters on Facebook.
In addition to an equally debatable and blistering Oakland Chamber of Commerce poll released two weeks ago that Tuman says, “shows that the people of this city, our community leaders, and now our press, have lost all confidence in this administration’s ability to lead.”
Both negative news items against Quan are manufactured news events. However, that does not mean they are untrue. Quan has some very vocal detractors in the community. She is also hemmed in by progressive voters who loath her handling of Occupy Oakland and middle-to-upper class residents who think she didn’t do anywhere near enough to stop the repeated damage to downtown businesses.
But, before Quan haters rejoice, her demise is long from assured. In fact, she still sits ahead of the pack with both time on her side and the certainty many issues and controversies will arise from here to November 2014. She still maintains a positive demographic edge (women and minorities) and can wave the flag of experience, no matter those who will inevitably scoff at this notion. Who is to say one or both of Quan’s main opponents–both political neophytes–won’t make a debilitating unforced error in the next 12 months?
Politically speaking, there are stages to voter apathy when it comes to throwing an incumbent out of office. Some Oaklanders may be currently grappling with the shopping stage. Are they so miffed at Quan that they start looking for other candidates to support? At that point, voters compare and contrast their options. Is Joe Tuman or Bryan Parker any better than Quan? If not, can I give them the benefit of the doubt?
If voters are asking themselves these sorts of questions on a sunny fall day in 2013 it makes this point in the campaign very precarious for the challengers. Because if voters go shopping and find the other options lackluster or no better than what they have, they may revert back to Quan and never find the time in their busy days to give Tuman or Parker another opportunity. In a likely close campaign next year, in addition to the inherent confusion of ranked choice voting, these are the moments when races are won and lost.
ebcitizen.com 
Larry Lional Young? Oakland needs solutions, not slogans and one liners
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Tavares may not get it, but ranked choice voting is straightforward. To win, Quan will have to defeat her top opponent one-on-one in the final round. That means being ranked ahead of that candidate on a majority of ballots in that final round. That's the way Quan won in 2010, and that's the way she'll win or lose in 2014 if she seeks re-election.
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Only if you don't know how to use it to your advantage. It saves us taxpayers a lot of money because we only have to pay for one election instead of two.
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Winning a district is one thing. Winning city wide is another. Wait and see. Rank choice voting throws everything upside down.
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Libby Schaff just entered the race and is a much better candidate.
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Status quo seems outdated now days and most of the candidates that have been spoken about appear to be status quo or a water down version. Look at Ney Yorks new mayor. Speaking of new Some one ask “vote Larry Lionel Oakland will be well to run again.” This young native was hilarious yet geniune, articulate and I felt it was what Oakland needed . He ran last mayor election and did very well in the debates but not in the polls. I think he got 14 % of the 1st place votes for the city council race last year . Very impressive without raising any money..Seems smart was very informative , a cylclist and is an entertaining speaker. If he is on the ballot Im voting for LARRY LIONEL YOUNG JR.
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Yawn.
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Anon 4:24 and 1:33–same person
You must be a Tuman true believer, or maybe Tuman himself.
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What a boring shill for a boring candidate. He only excites the Conservatives and there are very few of those in Oakland. He will come in last in a 3 or 4 person race. Hope Kaplan runs.
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I agree with the above comment.
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Nice try Tuman shill but no cigar. I went there and absolutely love her qualifications. I invite everyone to go there and make up their own minds.
Kaplan is our only hope—she will appeal more to the Oaktown demographics than Tuman. Also, remember Tuman can't amass the number of volunteers that is required to win an at large seat while Kaplan has and did.
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I went to the Kaplan website. Nothing there but promises to 'keep fighting for this' or 'continue supporting' that from the 2012 campaign. Here we are a year later, and so far as I can tell, these promises have not been kept. If this is supposed to show how Kaplan is worthy, or what she stands for–well, it falls short. Instead what comes across is that she mostly stands for herself…and election or reelection. I want something more from an at-large representative.
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I hope everyone who reads this goes to her website and reads for themselves who she is and what she stands for an has done. You are a boring shill for Tuman who can't win an election in Oakland because of the demographics and the huge progressive base of Oaktown. If calling you a boring shill is an insult then you are too sensitive and I'm starting to believe you might be Tuman.
I'll let the people who go to the site be the judge of whether she is worthy or not. I willing to take that chance, are you?
Of course she hasn't said she will run, but I believe she will appeal more to the Oaktown demographics than Tuman. Also, remember Tuman can't amass the number of volunteers that is required to win an at large seat while Kaplan has and did.
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Those who get a thrill out of reading Kaplan's website are the same ones who are thrilled by laundry detergent commercials on TV and by the true excitement presented by the verbiage on the box of Kellogg's Frosted Flakes. Flake is indeed the word, or perhaps it's “quasi-literate.”
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I hope everyone who reads this goes to her website and reads for themselves who she is and what she stands for an has done. You are a boring shill for Tuman who can't win an election in Oakland because of the demographics and the huge progressive base of Oaktown. If calling you a boring shill is an insult then you are too sensitive and I'm starting to believe you might be Tuman.
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“Boring shill…” Ah yes, name-calling and personal insults. The last refuge of those who have nothing constructive to say. And thank you you for again repeating yourself–now for the sixth time. And still no evidence to show what Kaplan has done on the city council for five years.
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You must be a Tuman true believer, or maybe Tuman himself.
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What a boring shill for a boring candidate. He only excites the Conservatives and there are very few of those in Oakland. He will come in last in a 3 or 4 person race. Hope Kaplan runs.
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And absolutely no one can save us from Kaplan's strange and robotic-sounding true believer. Maybe the true believer can clone itself into the “hundreds” of grassroots workers that it thinks Kaplan has or deserves. Listen, if a robot knocks on my door with a Kaplan brochure, I'm going to turn out the lights and go hide in the basement.
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“Kaplan is the only one who can save us from Quan.”
Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha
And Tuman is the only one who can save us from Kaplan and Quan!
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Thank you for making my point–by my count for the fifth time–by simply repeating what you said before. And for your information, I know Oakland politics, culture, history and “demographics” (really–that was the best word you could come up with?) very very well. You would do well to go out and talk to some of the groups you identified as being in Kaplan's camp. They are not as monolithic as you pretend. They have brains and opinions–and are quite diverse like everyone else. And for the umpteenth time, this is all so pointless–since Kaplan is not a candidate. I eagerly await your repeating yourself for a sixth time…
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The above poster knows nothing about Oaktown or it's politics or demographics. Tuman has no chance period.
Tuman can't generate the ground troops and if you know him you will know why. The right-wing, never puts butts on the street. They talk but don't follow through. Neither does the chamber. Tuman doesn't resonate with the huge group of liberal, progressive, voters in Oaktown. Nor does he resonate with the huge block of minority voters. Kaplan does and can get the ever growing LGBT vote and the anti-Quan vote. Quan and Kaplan can put hundreds of precinct walking volunteers on the street. If Tuman gets a couple of dozen he'll be lucky. That's not good enough to win in Oaktown. Kaplan is the only one who can save us from Quan.
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Wow, I guess the individual who posted most of the above comments for Kaplan must believe that if he/she just keeps reposting the same identical post from above that those of us who are reading won't notice that NOTHING NEW is being argued at this point. As if this individual mindlessly follows the old propaganda ploy: keep telling the same lies and eventually they become the truth. I find it interesting that this individual was challenged earlier in this thread to prove his/her point about Kaplan by citing specific examples of things she has accomplished in 5 years on the city council. The response given was–and I quote in repost: “Go to her website—I'm not going to do your work for you.” And yet…when struggling to prove Kaplan's alleged intellectual prowess in the above thread, this same individual managed to find specific evidence…in the form of university degrees. So this time you could do the homework for us, huh?
And what exactly does this evidence prove: that Kaplan went to school. Period. You are beyond clueless on this. How about doing the rest of the homework and telling us about all the wonderful things she has accomplished on the city council in the last five years. Come on, help us out. Persuade us. If you can cite her degrees, you can point to her accomplishments. I mean, according to you, there will be lots to choose from, right? Right. I also find it interesting that this poster continues to attack Tuman–whose main crime seems to be that he is not Kaplan. Tuman also graduated Phi Beta Kappa at Berkeley, and also earned his Juris Doctorate from Boalt Hall. According to his website, he has authored and edited numerous B…O..O…K…S across a variety of topics. But according to our poster, Kaplan is smarter…because…? Well just because. To make it even less convincing, said poster has to throw in a little dig suggesting that Kaplan has better “personal appeal.” On what, exactly, do you base that howling claim? In the end, you have offered no evidence for your claims to Kaplan's alleged superiority, you argue inconsistently, repeating the same claims over and over, and make snarky value judgments. This is supposed to persuade us? All I am persuaded of is that you are more than a Kaplan salesperson–you are probably one of her staff, trolling here to try and build some argument for a mayoral candidacy that has not emerged–hence your insistence on repeating the same nonsense arguments. I would encourage you–and the hundreds of make-believe “precinct walking volunteers” you claim that Kaplan has to spend your time more productively.
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Councilmember Kaplan earned a Bachelor of Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she was awarded the Phi Beta Kappa academic honor. She also holds a Master of Arts in Urban & Environmental Policy from Tufts University and a Juris Doctorate from Stanford Law School.
If you go to her website and click on issues you can see all the things she has done which are too numerous to list.
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I agree with you somewhat on Quan, but not at all on Kaplan. She is the smartest one on the Council bar none and far superior to Tuman in every way including brains and personal appeal.
Tuman can't generate the ground troops and if you know him you will know why. The right-wing, never puts butts on the street. They talk but don't follow through. Neither does the chamber. Tuman doesn't resonate with the huge group of liberal, progressive, voters in Oaktown. Nor does he resonate with the huge block of minority voters. Kaplan does and can get the ever growing LGBT vote and the anti-Quan vote. Quan and Kaplan can put hundreds of precinct walking volunteers on the street. If Tuman gets a couple of dozen he'll be lucky. That's not good enough to win in Oaktown. Kaplan is the only one who can save us from Quan.
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Kaplan and Quan are reactionaries not progressives. Neither of them want any change from the status quo of a demoralized, ineffective police force, a leadership-free government, the institutionalized racism which keeps some parts of Oakland from growing economically, promotion of Oakland as a center for drug distribution and so on. This is not liberalism or progressivism of any sort; it's the most destructive kind of antidemocratic, self-serving narcissism.
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Tuman can't generate the ground troops and if you know him you will know why. The right-wing, never puts butts on the street. They talk but don't follow through. Neither does the chamber. Tuman doesn't resonate with the huge group of liberal, progressive, voters in Oaktown. Nor does he resonate with the huge block of minority voters. Kaplan does and can get the ever growing LGBT vote and the anti-Quan vote. Quan and Kaplan can put hundreds of precinct walking volunteers on the street. If Tuman gets a couple of dozen he'll be lucky. That's not good enough to win in Oaktown. Kaplan is the only one who can save us from Quan.
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Tuman is toast and will get beat like drum.
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I second that. Kaplan is more of the same as Quan. Two peas in a pod. Linked at the arms like in the picture. Why would we replace one with the other. If you replace Quan, do it with somebody who will actually get something done for safety: Tuman.
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You are Kaplan's salesperson here and it looks like you have nothing to sell. Kaplan's website is devoid of anything informative. It looks a lot like you don't know what you are talking about which is fine and supports what I've suggested that Kaplan can't possibly be a good alternative to Quan.
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Go to her website—I'm not going to do your work for you. If you don't like Quan, she is our only hope. Tuman has NO chance.
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Exactly how would Kaplan be a “much better mayor than Quan?” Please take your time and explain as fully as you can.
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Because Kaplan would be a much better mayor than Quan.
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If the only person who can take out Quan is Kaplan, then why bother?
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In your opinion. Agree to disagree then. I believe the best candidate to unseat Quan is Tuman. I am very familiar with Oakland politics too.
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I stand by my statements and very familiar with Oaktown politics. I want Quan out too, but the only one that has the ability to take her out is Kaplan.
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It's obvious you don't know Tuman or his campaign. Or maybe you do? But if he was as weak as you suggest, why would you still be pressing so hard to prove he can't win? The more you press your case, the less believable you are. There will be an election soon–and the voters will decide. The amazing thing is that you still don't get how mad the voters are about public safety and the string of broken promises from city hall. And I all mean all voters.
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Excuse me, but where were the “hundreds of precinct walking volunteers” for Kaplan in either of her last two elections? For that matter, did or does she ever venture out of uptown? In my district the only people for Kaplan we saw were paid staffers–and sometimes her CC staff. Not volunteers. Think she can inspire an army? As for Quan, you really should talk to the rank and file in SEIU and see how tepid their support for her is. If her poll numbers continue to sag, do you really think they will go to the mats for her? Good luck with that; with keen judgment like that, I hope you are advising both of them.
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Tuman can't get the money or the backing he needs, not in Alameda County anyway. We definitely need a more viable candidate.
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Tuman can't generate the ground troops and if you know him you will know why. The right-wing, never puts butts on the street. They talk but don't follow through. Neither does the chamber. Tuman doesn't resonate with the huge group of liberal, progressive, voters in Oaktown. Nor does he resonate with the huge block of minority voters. Kaplan does and can get the ever growing LGBT vote and the anti-Quan vote. Quan and Kaplan can put hundreds of precinct walking volunteers on the street. If Tuman gets a couple of dozen he'll be lucky. That's not good enough to win in Oaktown. Kaplan is the only one who can save us from Quan.
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I agree with the comment above. I can't imagine that many voters in Oakland want to reelect (or in Kaplan's case, promote) politicians who keep doing nothing about public safety. Tuman will win.
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Ground game and the volunteers to match do matter; that's the whole point! Have you not been paying attention to the fact Tuman came in this early (15 months)? That's how you raise money and draw your volunteers. You say he couldn't get the volunteers to phone bank and canvass last time. That was with 11 WEEKS of campaigning, netting him almost 15K votes. This time he has lots of volunteers. Fifteen months plus professional consultants for strategy. You do the math. You want to bet on Quan or somebody who might come in–go ahead. Me, I am staying with Tuman. Honest, smart, hard working, tough, compassionate, accountable. He will get the job done.
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That's true.
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Your opinion.
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He couldn't get the ground troops last time. He's been making the rounds this time, but nobody new is signing on to help him. There are only 2 people in Oakland who can amass any kind of significant ground operations. They are Quan and Kaplan. They both had a few hundred dedicated volunteers. A media campaign, although necessary, just isn't enough to win in Oaktown. Kaplan is our only hope if she runs.
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Exactly why won't Tuman have the grassroots apparatus needed to win?
He's got a good year to get all that together.
As the Yogi said “predictions are difficult to make, especially about the future.” Maybe doubly difficult when you don't know anything.
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Tuman doesn't have and will not have the ground operations like phone banks and precinct walkers going door to door. Kaplan is the only viable candidate that does have the ground troops to beat Quan. Unfortunately, she hasn't said she will run and if she doesn't it looks like Quan for a second term. Like it or not, and I don't, that's the political reality.
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You have it backwards. The smart money is on the smart candidate–and that is Tuman. Only a fool continues to bet on people like Quan or Kaplan who brought us to the place we are today in Oakland.
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You can bet your house on Tuman but you better have an R.V. to live and sleep in.
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It seems that there are more than a few Oaklanders who don't want any change downtown. Keep Kaplan, keep Quan and all the other nitwits we've elected over the years. Both the incumbents and their supporters must believe that Oakland hasn't really got any problems.
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Sorry to call your bluff-but she got about 22 or 23 thousand first place votes. About 7-8 thousand more than Tuman. Out of 100,000 votes cast–and given all the resources at her disposal–that hardly constitutes beating “the hell” out of him. Said it once, say it again: underachiever. If she was all you say, why didn't she do better? And if he was weak as you imply, how did he get that many first place votes in 11 weeks? We'll see the answer this year when he has 15 months to campaign. Until then, your dismissal is just so much hot air–and frankly, makes me wonder why you are working so hard to dismiss a candidate you think cannot win?
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How many thousand first place votes did Kaplan get? How many thousand votes did she beat him by in the IRV election total? It wasn't even close and you know it. Get real yourself.
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One more thing. Kaplan didn't “beat the hell” out of Joe Tuman in 2010. She finished third to his fourth place out of a field of ten. She was in the race for a long time. He was in for a whopping 11 weeks. She got several hundred thousand dollars from the nurses association (thinking they would set her up to run for assembly in the future), and he operated a grass roots effort on a small budget of 70-80 thousand bucks. She was a well known politician, he was a first timer with little name recognition. And yet he got almost 15,000 first place votes. You tell me: with all the resources she had, you think she beat the hell out of him or anyone else? Get real. Dude, seriously, one word describes Kaplan: underachiever.
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Joe Tuman more than matches Kaplan academically, and offers considerably more intellect. Ever heard the two of them speak or debate at an event? No contest. Tuman by a mile. He has also written or edited 16 books on a variety of topics. You think she is the smartest on the council? How high a bar is that? And what exactly has she accomplished after nearly 5 years on the council? Trying to get pot dispensaries going? Bust. A green bus and some cabaret licenses? Ohhhh! How about being the darling of the Occupy crowd. These are the qualifications to be Mayor? I don't think so. People who live here want somebody who will address crime and public safety. Dude, seriously. Joe Tuman again by a mile.
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She beat the hell out of Tuman. She is the only viable candidate that can beat Quan. If Perata wasn't in the race she might of won. Tuman really did poorly and doesn't have a chance this time.
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“With all of Oakland voting, by a huge margin and is [sic] extremely popular in Oaktown”…Ms Kaplan did not get elected mayor.
Must have been a miscount.
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She won the at large seat, with all of Oakland voting, by a huge margin and is extremely popular in Oaktown, with you being the exception.
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Kaplan has more degrees than Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, Martin Luther King and Barack Obama combined! And she right here in Oaktown. We be so proud!
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Ya sure you betcha. Accomplishments too numerous to list. “Improved public safety” been there, done that, no problem. “Created jobs in local economy” yeah if you smoke pot. “Made government run more efficiently” that's Oakland for ya, smooth, efficient, transparent, so democratic.
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Kaplan was a very good girl in school. She is a very immature and destructive public servant.
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Councilmember Kaplan earned a Bachelor of Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she was awarded the Phi Beta Kappa academic honor. She also holds a Master of Arts in Urban & Environmental Policy from Tufts University and a Juris Doctorate from Stanford Law School.
If you go to her website and click on issues you can see all the things she has done which are too numerous to list.
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She's smart? How, exactly? What Oakland problems has she actually helped to solve?
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She's the smartest one on the Council bar none. Sometimes it's better to go with smart rather than ideology.
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Kaplan=hope, nope! Kaplan=dope.
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Agree—-so I guess Kaplan is our only hope
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Joe will get 4th or 5th depending who joins the race.
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People can debate who will or will not win.
But no one can debate that along with Dellums, Jean Quan is one of the worst mayors Oakland has ever had in recent history.
I've lived in Oakland since the 50's and I don't think Oakland can stand 4 more years of incompetence.
No matter what she says about the future, Jean Quan has already shown the limits of her ability to improve Oakland.
She simply does not have the ability to lead Oakland.
I pray that she doesn't slip in by some method or mistake.
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It will be Joe as the next Mayor. We have gotten nothing from experience politicos. Oakland will want to start from scratch and with a fresh perspective.
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If Kaplan runs-she wins. Tuman has no chance!
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Keep in mind that if Quan has anything going for her it's her deeply entrenched political survival resources. As soon as she was elected mayor she started up a faux neighborhood organization called “Block by Block” to provide her with devoted minions when reelection time comes.
Any would-be Oakland mayor who is at all serious about challenging the status quo is going to have to do a lot of grassroots work to challenge the Quan machine. A year ahead of an election is in no way too early to get going.
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This entire wad of prose seems to be intended to mean something like this: “Folks don’t even think about the election now (and heaven forbid don’t get involved) because you will get so turned off regarding change for the whole of the next year that you will, inevitably, vote for Quan again in 2014. Which is what I would like you to do because it’s inevitable after all and democracy is a bad idea and anyway democracy dead by now at least in Oakland. Stay confused about ranked choice voting and don’t remember what happened last time when Quan got elected. Lastly, remember that races in the future are won and lost in the present. In other words our fate is already determined.”
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