Life on the trail: A day campaigning with Oakland’s mayoral candidates
on October 31, 2014
Starting around noon Wednesday at a campaign headquarters at a co-working space in downtown Oakland and until nearly 9 p.m., when the day ended at a mayoral sports forum at a Lakeshore neighborhood church, we followed candidates Courtney Ruby, Joe Tuman, Bryan Parker and Mayor Jean Quan.
The latest polls indicate candidates Kaplan, Schaaf, Quan, Tuman and Parker as the top contenders in Tuesday’s close race.
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- 12:15 p.m. Courtney Ruby consults with a staff member at Oakland Impact Hub, a co-working space where the campaign leases an office. Photo by Justin Whiteman.
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- 12:25 p.m. Ruby, who is Oakland’s city auditor, discusses logistics on a phone call at her headquarters. “In running a city-wide campaign, you have to touch voters so many times,” Ruby said. Photo by Justin Whiteman.
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- 12:40 p.m. Ruby strategizes with her campaign manager, Darin Cline, on final preparations for an evening campaign reception featuring author Marianne Williamson. Tickets for the event ranged from $35 to $350 per person. Photo by Justin Whiteman.
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- 3 p.m. At Joe Tuman’s campaign headquarters in the KONO District, he sets aside an hour to call voters. Of the 30 calls Tuman makes, he speaks to a handful of people, all senior citizens. For most calls he leaves a message, assuring residents it is not a robo-call. Photo by Sasha Lekach.
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- 3:03 p.m. Mayor Jean Quan talks to a dozen residents in the Maxwell Park neighborhood where she campaigns. At this one, the resident opens her door; out come both of her big friendly dogs. Photo by Joshua Escobar.
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- 3:40 p.m. “Mom. . . Mayor Quan is at our door,” this resident calls out. Moments before taking this selfie with the mayor, she was making her Halloween costume. Photo by Joshua Escobar.
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- 3:47 p.m. While Quan goes door-to-door in the Maxwell Park neighborhood, this man explains how family members can’t get from the street to his house because the sidewalk is uneven. Quan makes a mayor’s call, on the spot, to file a complaint. Photo by Joshua Escobar.
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- 4:25 p.m. In between stops, Quan seems to be doing ten things at once: checking her emails, texts and list of registered voters; calling her secretary; giving directions and catching up on news and gossip. Photo by Joshua Escobar.
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- 4:52 p.m. Inside Class of Braids beauty shop on MacArthur Boulevard, the hairdresser says she likes the way Quan is always out in the community. Photo by Joshua Escobar.
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- 5:08 p.m. Resident Margaret Pillsbury, a retired Oakland schoolteacher, hosts a small group of residents at her 18th-floor apartment at the St. Paul’s Towers for an intimate chat with Tuman about education and crime. Photo by Sasha Lekach.
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- 5:10 p.m. Bryan Parker inspects the damage to his car, vandalized a few hours before while sitting in front of his campaign headquarters. Later that evening at the Oakland Sports Forum he apologizes for his late arrival by joking about the incident as proof of the city’s crime problem. Photo by Alissa Greenberg.
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- 5:25 p.m. A foosball table sits unused at Parker’s headquarters as volunteers busy themselves with a last push. “Hi, my name is Hadiya, and I’m calling today in support of Bryan Parker,” says Oakland Tech student Hadiya Owens, 17, there making calls with her Civic Engagement class. Photo by Alissa Greenberg.
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- 5:45 p.m. Dan Bellino, Parker’s campaign manager, goes door to door near the intersection of West and 21st Streets. “I already decided who I’m voting for,” a man tells him curtly, declining to open the door. Photo by Alissa Greenberg.
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- 5:50 p.m. Khalil and Mike Williams and Terreno Houston knock on doors for Parker. “Right now, ain’t nobody doing nothing,” a woman tells them about Oakland city hall– she is unsure if she will vote at all. But after some discussion, Houston convinces her to vote for Parker. Photo by Alissa Greenberg.
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- 6:05 p.m. Bellino and Houston pause to consult the app the campaign uses to keep track of which houses they have already visited. Bellino says the campaign has knocked on “well over 50,000 doors” since January. Photo by Alissa Greenberg.
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- 7:10 p.m. During the Oakland Sports Forum, Tuman explains his ideas to finance a new stadium and other deals to keep the A’s and Raiders in Oakland. “I love these teams,” he tells the audience, “and I will fight to keep them here.” Photo by Sasha Lekach.
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- 7:30 p.m. Parker and Quan chat in between questions about how to keep Oakland’s three sports teams. “We can’t finance a football stadium on 11 games a year,” Quan says. Photo by Sasha Lekach.
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- 8:15 p.m. Parker, Tuman and Quan pose with other Oakland mayoral candidates, including fellow frontrunners Rebecca Kaplan and Dan Siegel plus a few write-in hopefuls, for a photo taken by blogger and event moderator Zennie Abraham, moments before the Giants win the World Series. Photo by Sasha Lekach.
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Where is Oakland’s self-proclaimed “smartest leader in the world”, Peter Lui?
This is a misleading article – you don’t bother to go out with the two front runners Kaplan and Schaaf and yet you title it “a day campaigning with Oakland’s Mayoral Candidates”. absurd.