I’ve seen a lot of sleazy campaign ads in my life. Willie Horton (George H.W. Bush) was the worst, but almost everything Trump has run has been disgusting. And I must say it’s usually the Republican candidate who runs the most dishonest ads. But the sleaziest, dirtiest, most fraudulent ad I’ve ever seen in Oakland is Barbara Lee’s mailer on Loren Taylor, in which she accuses Taylor of being the cause of homelessness and crime.
Her claim:“homelessness surged” and “crime skyrocketed” during the years Taylor was on the City Council (2019-2023) and therefore it’s his fault.
Look, homelessness and crime were out of control in Oakland long before Taylor was on the City Council. The city deteriorated not because of Loren Taylor, who was a moderate, but because of the horrific ideology of Carroll Fife, Nikki Bas, Rebecca Kaplan, Sheng Thao and Dan Kalb, and before them all, Libby Schaaf. They were the ones who repeatedly tried to defund the police, who contributed to plunging morale at OPD, who stymied the cops from doing their jobs, who encouraged the police-hating Police Commission, who supported the racist, woke candidate for District Attorney, Pamela Price, who remained silent as the federal monitor Robert Warshaw declared war on our cops, and who encouraged encampments throughout the city. It was that crew that wrecked Oakland; Taylor just had the misfortune of sitting next to them on the Council for a while. And while Lee was smearing Taylor, she was out there supporting Thao, claiming that the recall was bogus, and not saying a word against Fife or Bas, the true enemies of public safety and protectors of encampments.
Is there any lie that’s too outrageous for Barbara Lee?
She’s desperate. She knows she’s lost the public relations battle. Her repeated blunders on the campaign trail—noted by all the local media—have not escaped voters’ attention. Her call to give homeless people free money has been met with derision. She has denounced the Supreme Court’s decision to permit rousting encampments. And she cannot overcome her obsession with skin color, at a time when citizens are sick and tired of arguing about racism and simply want peace and security. Lee is, indeed, “Sheng Thao 2.0,” as Judge Brenda Harbin-Forte has noted. And Sheng Thao is the most hated politician in modern Oakland history.
Lee’s pathetic allegation that Loren Taylor is responsible for our problems ought to be roundly rejected in every town hall, by every journalist, by every voter. Anyone cynical enough to lie like that is clearly unfit, morally and intellectually, for public office. Lee is a creature of the Washington swamp if ever there was one. We can’t allow her to get elected, we just can’t. To do so would further divide us and perhaps permanently ruin Oakland.
Steve Heimoff