Joanna –

What makes you say he has a problem with strong women? His staff is entirely composed of awesome smart women.

Ideologue = rational ideas outside his frame of thought will be dismissed and never considered.
Grandstander = more likely to work on getting attention than results
Power Machine = he’s beholden to too many powerful people

Doug Boxer? I don’t know him well enough to make a call on whether or not he’d be worthy. All I was saying was that I’d heard rumors, or rather I’d heart dto510 say that he was considering a run.

I’m still educating myself about De La Fuente. His staff was super responsive to me, and was willing to hear me make long explanations about my little mission, and they seemed to really consider what I had to say, and offer constructive friendly criticism where needed. I haven’t really read up on his alleged crookedness in any source other than the Express, which I’m rapidly losing trust for. There are too many sides to that story for me to sift through. I’ll wait for the election to read more about it. Still, clean or not, he seems to get things done.

Frankly, I’d like Brown back, but I also want two term limits put on the council. Inconsistent philosophy from uncle Max? you bet.

I didn’t want to vote for any of the three last time around. Wish I had written in Mickey Mouse in hindsight. I’d love to join the recall Dellums campaign if there was one, but it would only take Council’s focus away (even more) from solving real problems. Probably best to just wait until next time around at this point.

Think about it: cheerleader for business and development investment, favors new construction/increased housing market, tougher on crime than the current administration and most others on city council, is a visible “on-the-street” pressence kind of guy (unlike Dellums, he lets you know about every single thing he does), has great raport with Jerry Brown (likely gubernatorial candidate) to maybe grease things a little better on the state level.

Now, I’m not trying to give him a ringing endorsement or anything, I’m just saying he seems to match up pretty well to most of the gripes lodged on this blog. I suppose some of his biggest deterents are how polarizing a character he can be(in that those who don’t like him HATE him), and that many people are less than thrilled with some of his methods.

Just my two cents.

Boxer’s name has come up more than a few times… and that’s an interesting thought. But would you want your first major political office to be one where you could so easily fail? I wouldn’t! It’s not a case where you’re set up for anything other than failure. You might make inroads, but it will take many years for Oakland to be a success. There’s too much working against it, namely history.

The idea of Chip Johnson for Mayor is humorous. No thanks. He’s just as divisive as Dellums has turned out to be.

This city needs a cheerleader that can bring folks together and rally morale. Someone who can be on the streets every day getting out and talking to the people and being visable to this city. Not someone who runs off to DC looking for money. You hire that person to be in DC looking for money.