Friday, September 24, 2010
Rebecca Kaplan Wins Mayoral Debate
Politics / People Robert Gammon — Fri, Sep 24, 2010 at 11:22 AM
Rebecca Kaplan may be running third in the polls, but the energetic councilwoman appeared to be the clear-winner in last night’s big mayoral debate. Kaplan exuded a passion and love for Oakland unmatched by the eight other candidates on hand, and she repeatedly drew the loudest applause from the large, standing-room-only audience at the Kaiser Center. She also exhibited what politicos call “that vision-thing.”
Most of the candidates easily detailed the city’s many problems, but Kaplan was the only one to vividly describe not only how she would fix them, but how she would turn Oakland around by capitalizing on its strengths — its great weather, its burgeoning reputation as a foodie Mecca, its resourceful residents, and its many small businesses. Audience members repeatedly ignored requests by event moderator Martin Reynolds, editor of the Oakland Tribune, to hold their applause until the end of the debate and instead clapped approvingly when Kaplan finished her answers. The event, sponsored by the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, the League of Women Voters, and the Bay Area Business Roundtable, drew at least 500 people.
Joe Tuman, longtime political science professor and TV news analyst, also performed well. And that should come as no surprise; he’s an excellent public speaker, and longtime coach of the San Francisco State debate team who led the squad to four national collegiate championships. Tuman came across as a serious, no-nonsense candidate, and he may have greatly improved his chances in the race. “I swear to you, there’s meat on these bones,” he promised the audience during his opening statement, which drew a big round of applause.
By contrast, Don Perata, the frontrunner in the race, probably should have stayed home. Indeed, if his performance was any indication, it’s no wonder that the ex-state senator skipped all but one of the debates in recent months. If you had attended last night’s event and had no idea who the candidates were, you might very well have written off Perata as some old fart who had no chance of winning. He was that bad.
The veteran politician, for example, repeatedly failed to answer questions posed to him by the debate panelists — Randy Shandobil of KTVU-Channel 2 News, Tammerlin Drummond of the Oakland Tribune, and Alex Gronke of Oakbook. Instead, Perata launched into rambling answers in which we decried Oakland’s problems, but offered no real solutions for how to solve them. For example, when both Drummond and Gronke pressed him on how the city will be able to afford more police officers without raising taxes, Perata criticized the recent police layoffs, talked about the need for more cops, and then skipped the part about how a broke city would be able to pay them. One audience member sitting near this reporter blurted out: “That’s pathetic; he doesn’t answer the questions.”
Audience members also repeatedly shouted to Perata to speak into the microphone because they couldn’t hear what he was saying. Indeed, it looked throughout the event as if the ex-senator didn’t want to be there. He sat expressionless for the most of the evening, with his hands crossed at his chest, and then would mumble something into the mic, forcing audience members to shout: “Speak up" or "We can’t hear you.”
Perata also made a few interesting promises during a portion of the debate when Reynolds asked the candidates to answer “yes,” “no,” or “undecided” to a series of rapid-fire questions. For example, Perata paused and then promised, as did every other candidate, to attend every city council meeting if he becomes mayor. He also vowed, as did all the other candidates, to take a salary cut if elected.
The only bright spot for Perata was that he didn’t put on the worst performance of the night. That honor went to Marcie Hodge, a Peralta Community College District trustee. Hodge appeared to be extremely ill-prepared for the debate, repeatedly offering incoherent answers — even after she raised her hand and asked to speak. Reynolds mercifully cut her off several times after she rambled past the time deadline without saying anything meaningful. At one point, Hodge recognized how bad she was doing, telling the audience: “You guys are scaring me; I’m stumbling up here.”
Maybe the most surprising candidate of the night was Lionel “Larry” Young Jr., a charismatic, engaging young man. He spoke with poise, confidence, and humor. The audience clearly liked him.
The only other candidate worth mentioning was Councilwoman Jean Quan, who is running slightly behind Perata in the polls. She had a workmanlike evening, steady but unspectacular. She showed again that she’s not a charismatic speaker. She’s smart and solid, but she lacks Kaplan’s “vision-thing” and Tuman’s polished and powerful speaking style. She does answer questions, however.
Comments (17)
Showing 1-17 of 17
Crimbus, political traction in Montclair is worth a far sight more than traction in some other areas I could think of. Montclarions turn out to vote and the same cannot be said for some other areas of the City. If Tuman can gain support in the remainder of the hill areas, he will have a lot of leverage, for the same reason.
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I drove through Montclair this weekend and I was surprised at how many Tuman signs I saw. I think there were as many Tuman signs as Perata and Quan signs combined (though admittedly the total number of signs I saw was in the low double-digits).
I'm wonder how he's manage to gain visible traction there, but not in other neighborhoods?
Sorry, Bob, but Kaplan sounded like she was running for Student Council President.
The $700 donation to Rebecca Kaplan by the Instituto Laboral de la Raza Treasurer Dan Rush must be raising some eyebrows. Doing double duty as the UFCW Local 5 chief enforcer has elicited this enlightened comment by a newly compromised Oaksterdam University employee:
"Actually, we employees of Oaksterdam University were railroaded into signing our Union cards; and threatened with dismissal if we didn't join the Union. We never asked for their support, and were pressured by management into joining Local #5. Dan Rush is a common scum bag. June 18, 2010"
some endorsement. wonder where he took the $700 from?
Wow, new heights in biased reporting by this Kaplan shill. How is he allowed to report on this given his transparent advocacy for Kaplan and distortion of the facts? I guess with a free paper I can't cancel my subscription, so apparently EBEXPRESS feels no obligation to report truthfully.
Tuman clearly got the loudest applause with his opening and lines like "I promise your there is meat on these bones."
As a professional debate coach, college and high school, I would say that in a forum such as this there are different perspectives on how one can "win." You can get the most or loudest applause, which I think would give the debate to Tuman. You can move the needle in polls, or maintain in the polls, in the 2 to 3 days following the debate. This race has insufficient frequency of polling for that measure to be used with much effect, but nonetheless I expect you will see Tuman moving up in the coming week or so, and Kaplan more likely just holding steady.
Why wasn't Quan asked about her role in approving the contracts with workers which are bankrupting the city, or Perata about the sell out he's been to the state prison guards and police unions? He is the stoolie for those groups at this point and since those contracts are the key to saving the budget from collapse, if he wins I believe Oakland is a dead duck. Shame on you panelists for not asking the horrible frontrunners any hard questions. Shame, shame, shame.
Finally, I thought Tuman was fine on the qualifications issue. He points out that no candidate running has been a Mayor. Should he point out that Quan and Kaplan have been largely ineffectual on the council, and Perata a local gold standard in corruption? Sure, but the defenses he gives are at least adequate. That question is a legitimate one, so perhaps predictable, but hardly a set up.
And who are the most enthusiastic posters here and elsewhere? Supporters of Tuman and Kaplan, showing they both have depth in their support which makes it hard to yet count them out. If Tuman gets above 10% in a couple of more polls the coverage of him will expand, and given how weak these other candidates are, I'd not be surprise to see him surge into viability.
Matthew F
I was at the debate and I disagree with your description of who won in the debate. First I don't believe Kaplan received the largest round of applause. I think Joe Tuman received the largest round of applause during the introduction phase of the debate. Kaplan didn't sound passionate rather she bordered on sounding desperate for someone to vote for her. She didn't have any more specific solutions that others on the panel. I find Kaplan annoyingly hyper when she talks. Otherwise I would agree with your analysis of how the rest of the candidates faired during the evening.
What debate? This last forum was an interesting show, but there have been no real debates at the Mayoral Forums and I've been to a lot of them. Just a lot of promotions and posturing from what I've seen so far. I wouldn't declare any debate winner here. People really need to look at each candidate's actual work in the community and their records, not how they speak. Someone can appear quite eloquent and still have no real substance to their words. This is an election campaign and the candidates can say whatever they want, but what they've actually done for Oakland is for the record and speaks volumes. I'm old enough to know that promises and great ideas can be broken even by those with the best speeches and intentions. I prefer people with solid experience and their actual track record of performance and service for the community, not for their personal careers.
I think it's a little silly to have a headline which says that one candidate "won" a debate when there were no official victors.
Still, based on the video I watched, nobody put out a more coherent vision or a more coherent strategy than Kaplan did.
If she didn't win it, I don't know who did. I was really surprised to see the lackluster performances from Don Perata and Jean Quan. Particularly Don Perata - I won't vote for him for mayor, but I will acknowledge that he's a very strong speaker. It was a relief, frankly, to see him so off his game at such an important event.
RK is a total lapday for RK. Any scruity of his prior columns reveals complete bias for her. So cute.
Gammon is a lapdog. He might be objective in his other reporting but if one gets close, one can see he has RK tattooed across his forehead. Yes, Ms. Kaplan won the debate. News flash she will win the others, too. She is the only candidate who answers the questions, but that doesn't mean I will vote for her. She has yet to explain Nik Nak and why she prevented the police officers from performing their duties following the Meserhle verdict. Even if she thought the OPD plan was flawed, it was their flawed plan. Both she and Quan looked like people trying to pick up voter support by empathy.
While I would prefer a 3 or 4 candidate forum, I, like you, know the outcome. Kaplan wins. Tuman places second, Perata shows and Quan is out of the money.
Perata could possibly move up if he answers questions. Quan could improve her chances if she stopped blaming others and taking pot shots.
So how many of you have been to other forums where the "star" Rebecca Kaplan spoke? I have and others I work with have been to more than I have. Rebecca has memorized her lines well and delivers them exactly the same each time. A really good trait in actors, not so much as policy makers and executives.
Got to say I have some bias. Jean Quan has been my council member for the last 8 years. I've lived in Oakland (Montclair, a part of the city) since 1993 and in the Bay Area since 1982. The Montclair Village commercial district has seemed to steadily improve, and even now, when every part of the city has been hammered by the collapse of Wall Street and the housing bubble, there are only a few gaps in the Montclair Village shopscape. But, what’s even more remarkable has been the transformation of the Dimond and Laurel districts in the last few years. They are part of Jean’s district also. When I moved here, they were pretty grim places. Places to avoid or get through as quickly as possible. Not anymore. Jean had a lot to do with it. She has represented ALL of her district, not just the hills neighborhoods. Think about that when you fill out your ballot.
Michael
It was a weird debate. Quan didn't even introduce herself, broke the "rules" of the debate more than any other candidate, and it seemed like she wanted to leave in time to catch the premiere of The Office (which I kind of did too). Arnie Fields was giving out flowers and somehow made a connection between litter leading to burglary/homicides. Marcie Hodge couldn't spit a word out and it was awkward to watch her flail like that every time she opened her mouth. Tuman just seemed like a grumpy codger with no vision for the city besides more police. As a whole, a disappointing field.
I liked LL Young. While he is still very new to politics and by no means ready to be mayor right now, he has a future in politics I think. He was probably the most positive person in the group. Kaplan performed well, but with her I always feel it's a performance. I feel like she is an actor in a high school play half the time, but I do like some of what she has done as councilmember. Perata seemed a little disinterested. He's my pick for mayor right now (simply because I think he is the only candidate that will actually accomplish anything if elected), but he needs to show a little more passion -- that he really does believe in Oakland.
All in all, I think Kaplan probably picked up some new voters last night...but maybe not enough to move the race her way yet.
Heads up -- we just posted results of a new poll on the mayor's race. Includes some cool maps comparing votes for each candidate and votes per zip code. Check it out here: http://blog.tellfi.com
I thought Tuman was great. Kaplan is too inexperienced for my taste, but I like her. She has a future. Tuman is really going to surprise everyone in this one. Quan does not have nearly the support she thinks she has in the Hills.
I think Gammon might a bit overly effusive in this piece, but Rebecca Kaplan was strong throughout the forum. In particular, her closing was much better than all of the other candidates. I am not sure anyone can really tackle Oakland's huge problems, but at least Kaplan offers a balanced approach of reasonable taxes, managed service decline, but most importantly, economic growth. She presents the best possibility of actually growing the tax base.
I wish someone would have asked Perata about his proposed half percent sales tax hike. How can people let him get away with quips about parking violation fines hurting retail when he thinks Oakland should have the highest sales tax of any neighboring city.
I think Harland was better able to explain his ideas than in the past. While I don't think he really understands the difficulties of city government, he is a no nonsense guy with some interesting things to say.
On Tuman, how can you forget Randy Shandobil's question about Tuman's (lack of) qualifications. It was the best setup question of the night, and Tuman's response was totally lacking. Everytime Tuman answers this question, he embellishes it more and more, and still the sum total of his reported leadership experience adds up to naught.
A pretty accurate review overall.
I would also point out that there was a certain surliness to Jean Quan's demeanor. She also seemed like there were other things she would rather have been doing.
I could barely hear Perata's answers half the time and indeed... if I didn't know who he was, I would actually say that he had less of a chance than "old feller next to him" (Harland)
If that's the kind of performance he's going to pull off, he'd have a much better go of it skipping it, like he has the other debates.
Kaplan was electric and did a great job of giving clear and specific answers in a somewhat doofy debate format. It just re-enforced by belief that she is far and away the best candidate for the race and my 1st choice.
I hadn't heard much from "LL" Young Jr, and his consistent dropping of his catch phrase made me roll my eyes. But i'll be paying attention to him, he seems to have some potential. Hodge had a rough night.
Also, it bears mentioning that Arnie Fields had an almost unhealthy fixation on litter! What the hell, litter? THAT is the problem you are going to focus on?
And additionally, a good note for the next debate would be to have a clear, plain language response for what each of the measures are in case the crowd wants to know what the hell is being talked about. The moderator got caught flat foooted a couple times.
Ranked voting may surprise everyone. If the vote were held today, and signs are any indicator, Montclair is Tuman country. If he has time to build name recognition, and folks go to his web site to hear what he has to say, he may pull this one out of the hat.
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