Lena Tam: The Alameda Medium?

ALAMEDA CITY COUNCIL |
ELECTION 2016 |
Alameda City Council hopeful Lena Tam has people dying to support her campaign this fall.

Her campaign Web site’s endorsement list includes three people who have passed away in recent years.

The Heavenly backing for Tam’s campaign comes from former Alameda school board member Niel Tam, who passed away last year; former Alameda Councilmember Hadi Monsef;  and the recently deceased Mary C. Warrren, was serving on the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Joint Powers Authority at the time of her death earlier this month.

Tam’s Web site, up for a few weeks, pulled down the page Monday morning.

Candidates playing fast and loose with their endorsement lists, though, is an early election cycle tradition in the East Bay. Some forget to update the collection of supporters, while other claim to the error stemmed from transferring the list from a previous campaign Web site to the new one.

The inclusion of the dearly departed on Tam’s endorsement is obviously an error. However, the presence of the entire list, which appears to have been pulled from Tam’s campaign for the BART board in 2014, includes a great number of labor endorsements–support she is unlikely to receive in this upcoming Alameda council race.

The implication of the error, whether made honestly or with malice, though, runs the risk of misinforming voters. In particular, if the campaign neglects to remove false or exhausted endorsements in a timely fashion.

The most egregious case in recent years involved former Assembly candidate Joel Young, who consistently avoided editing his once lengthy endorsement list, despite pleas by his former backers, after a report of domestic violence surfaced during his 2012 primary campaign.

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