In a move that should have surprised no one, last week Oakland mayor Ron Dellums announced he wasn't going to run for re-election. That automatically extended the filing deadline to Wednesday.After a flurry of activity, we now have 13 candidates running for mayor:
- Arnie Fields
- Don Macleay
- Don Perata
- Greg Harland
- Jean Quan
- Joe Tuman
- Lionel Young, Jr.
- Marcie Hodge
- Niki Okuk
- Rebecca Kaplan
- Sharika Gregory
- Terence Candell
- Tim Brown
I'm a long way from deciding who I'll vote for, other than Anybody But Don. I've heard Rebecca Kaplan and Jean Quan speak at council meetings and other city events, and Kaplan and Joe Tuman were amongst the people who stopped by the EBBC bike parking at the Best of the East Bay party in Jack London Square, but there are a lot of candidates to educate myself about before deciding.
According to the East Bay Express, Perata is nearing the campaign spending cap, and we're still a long ways from the election. The article also talks about the spending of Kaplan and Quan, which has been fairly limited so far. Tribune reporter and The Education Report blogger Katy Murphy has an article on late-comer Marcie Hodge, a Peralta college trustee. Rounding out recent coverage is OaklandLocal's article about the response of various candidates to the the idea of a local currency for Oakland, and a different view of the event from Oakland North.
I'm sure there will be lots more coverage in the weeks and months to come, and I'd be surprised if all 13 candidates are still actively in the race by the time the election rolls around. Whether they all are or not, I'm glad we're going to have ranked voting / Instant Run-off Voting this time. With this wide a field, it'll be easier to pick a 1st, 2nd and 3rd choice and hope one of them wins, rather than have no clear winner and require a run-off in a separate election requiring more money.
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3 comments:
huge field. Many non contenders. Rank choice will make it interesting. Might be hard to find 3 to vote for
notdon.org - LOL!
According to this article, Tim Brown, Sharika Gregory and Niki Okuk took out papers but failed to qualify for the ballot. So we're already down to 10.
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