Sheng Thao just sent out a new mailer as part of her last, desperate pitch to avoid getting recalled. It contains claims from five politicians nobody really cares about. I will now debunk those claims, which are just lame defenses for Thao’s disastrous, failed mayoralty.
1. The Barbara Lee defense: “Recalls are undemocratic and prevent officials from governing.” FALSE. Recalls are enshrined in the California Constitution and are decidedly NOT undemocratic. Recalls prevent no one from governing while the recall is ongoing. All they do is prevent electeds from governing so badly that we, the people, are compelled to fire them.
2. The Keith Carson defense: “Electeds need time to adjust to their roles and deliver on their responsibilities.” FALSE. How much time does the citizenry need to determine that an elected is a disaster? Thao has had nearly two years in office, and we’ve seen her lose the A’s (deliberately) and preside over the decline of a once great city. We can’t afford another month of Thao, much less another two years of her term.
3. The Nancy Skinner defense: “Recalls are undemocratic and a waste of public funds.” This is just a rehash of the Barbara Lee defense, which is false.
4. The Sandre Swanson defense: “This recall is motivated only by political objectives.” FALSE: It’s motivated by love of Oakland, and the realization that we’ve given power to an unintelligent tool, beholden to the worst of the unions, who never had our best interests in mind. Besides, since when is the word “political” an epithet? It derives from the Greek “polis,” meaning city. All civic engagement is “political.”
5. The Tonya Love defense: “This recall will be disruptive and lead to chaos and dysfunction in Oakland.” FALSE: What is so disruptive about recalling Thao? There will be a smooth transition to a new mayor, as the Constitution and City Charter provide. What chaos? The only chaos we see is the chaos in our streets due to crime and the collapse of our retail sector due to Thao’s inattention.
The truth is, Thao is a weak mayor, unable to provide the firm leadership we need. She provides over a dysfunctional, bloated bureaucracy that spends most of its time obsessing on racial grievances. She does not listen to her constituents, who are suffering, but instead does whatever her union bosses demand. She has made war on the Oakland Police Department for years, and then, when crime soared as everyone predicted it would because of her support for defunding the police, she now pretends to be a friend of the police—a fraud that insults the Oakland Police Department and each of us as citizens.
Look, Thao can haul out any number of her flunky political pals to spout their hackneyed clichés about what a wonderful mayor she is, but the voters know better. It’s time to put this embarrassing period of wokeness behind us forever, and return Oakland to sane, balanced and effective governance.
Steve Heimoff