It's not like a dog couldn't do a better job. After all, the City of Oakland can't manage its police or its pensions, can't seem to hold onto its sports teams (Cf. Warriors, Raiders), can't decide on a company to get rid of its waste without the threat of a billion dollar lawsuit, violates its own ordinances and thinks spying on its citizens continuously is the epitome of a crime reduction strategy. Not to mention shoots peaceful protesters and beats people walking home from dinner.
There's no particular reason to believe most humans could do any better this time around, so why not have a dog run the city? And when that dog is named Einstein, well, you've got to think he's a relatively better choice no matter what your frame of reference.
Who are these fourteen human wanna-bes (and one incumbent)? In the order by they will appear on the ballot, and with their current jobs, as presented by the Oakland Wiki:
Charles Williams |
Engineering Manager Administrator |
Dan Siegel |
Civil Rights Attorney |
Rebecca Kaplan |
Oakland Councilmember At-Large |
Jason Anderson |
Communications Director |
Courtney Ruby |
Oakland City Auditor |
Eric Wilson |
Non-profit Employee |
Saied Karamooz |
Private Sector Executive |
Pat McCullough |
Technician/Lawyer/Entrepreneur |
Nancy Sidebotham |
Tax Preparer |
Peter Liu |
Father, Businessman, Executive |
Joe Tuman |
Government/Law Professor |
Ken Houston |
Contractor |
Bryan Parker |
Businessperson/University Trustee |
Libby Schaaf |
Oakland City Councilmember |
Jean Quan |
Mayor of Oakland |
They range from a candidate being taken seriously who believes
Bitcoin is the answer to poverty in Oakland, to a not so seriously taken candidate who wrote this about
what his tenure would be like as Mayor:
I am there to instill fear in the council, with watchful eyes like a cat watching blind mice play. When I pierce their deception, corruption, and/or bribery, that is when I pounce. They'll know me as Overseer Liu. To achieve my goals, if any councilmember obstructs me in any way that is unreasonable, I'll intellectually bitch slap them until they go home crying. Even a grown man will have thousand tears drip like piss.
They range from an incumbent Mayor who believed the
Prince of Dubai was going to rescue her pet development project, to a college professor who fantasizes that
hiring 200 more police officers is the solution to Oakland's crime problem (documented as costing $250K a pop or $50M a year, even as he claims it isn't so).
So when a very good dog presents a platform with planks in it like...
- The highest compensation for labor of any kind shall be no more than seven-times the lowest.
- Residents of Oakland shall not be displaced from their homes because of financial hardship
- A publicly owned and operated Bank of Oakland shall be instituted.
- Those detained or taken into custody by law enforcement officials shall not be harmed or abused
- Oakland shall not tolerate surveillance.
- Corporations shall not be recognized as the companions of animals, and, thus, shall not be recognized as humans.
- Oakland shall develop a single-payer health care system.
What's not to like?
Voters get to select their top three choices for Mayor in a system known as ranked-choice voting, and a ballot won't be voided nor other selections affected with a write-in vote for Einstein (Einstein's campaign staff verified this with the Alameda Registrar of Voters). As Einstein's slogan goes
HE'S A VERY GOOD DOG. HE'D BE A VERY GOOD MAYOR!
Sad to say, votes for Einstein aren't going to be tallied, and even if they were he couldn't become Mayor, because only humans (and thus corporations) can be elected to office in Oakland.
Nonetheless, it is fair to say that Einstein's candidacy (or caninacy, as some PUNdits have labeled it) has gotten more national and international attention than the other candidates combined.
There are articles in the Huffington Post (which has the best video, from What The Fark), the Washington Times and USA Today (another good video).There's an article in the Scotsman, and Metro, a British publication.. Einstein even made the local TV news in Tampa Bay, Florida.
While he has received mostly favorable press, Einstein has been consistently misrepresented by the 4th Estate as to his heritage. Said to be a "German shepard mix" on many newcasts, Einstein is in fact proudly and nobly a Catahoula.
Einstein has also been interviewed,. An excerpt:
Q. Do you have any special relatives?
A. No, only general ones.
Q. What's your favorite food?
A. Schrodinger's pet.
Q. Dead or alive?
A. All the same to me.
Q. What about the election? What do the polls say about your chances?
A. I'm the only dog in this race. How can I lose?
Einstein has a
Facewoof page,
a Twitter feed, a
polling organization and a dedicated campaign staff.
In fact, Einstein decided to formally announce his candidacy on the steps of Oakland City Hall last Thursday, and his campaign personnel worked long and hard in the days prior to pull the event off with a minimum of cat fud. Here's the formal announcement:
I leave you with Einstein's philosophy of governance:
...the question, as we see it, is not, "Can a dog run the City?" The question we should all ask is, "Can any individual be accountable for running the City?"
Of course, the Mayor doesn't run the City single-handedly. Nevertheless, who do we hold responsible when residents suffer from mismanagement of the City's tremendous wealth of resources? Is it not the highest elected official in City Government? This system allows residents to blame the Mayor for not solving the social problems facing Oakland.
Without a fallible human in the Mayor's Office, we must all play our parts in determining the route Oakland will take into the future.... if Einstein is elected, the interaction of residents with City officials - and with each other - will change, radically. No longer will we ask what the City Government can do for us. Instead, we will see the way clear to changing the City ourselves, to expanding the power of residents of modest income, to shrinking the power of the rich by establishing a larger and more representative City Council. No longer will we have a single individual to blame for our problems. After all, how can a very good dog like Einstein cause social problems?
Woof!