I just read Jerry Brown's new website "Jerry Brown for Attorney General" with its slick flash intro, basic color scheme, and telling text. Of the 1,245 words, only 206 -- or 16.5 percent -- concern his tenure as Mayor of Oakland. By contrast, many of his other highlights -- meeting with Cezar Chavez, for example, occured while he was Governor of California or running for President, and thus scoring 614 words of space. The remainder covers his marriage to Ann Gust, his first political campaign, his time at Seminary and his current Attorney General endorsements.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Oakland was just a vehicle for the reformation of Jerry Brown's political image. He didn't care about Oakland except from that perspective. He did this to achieve another objective, but not because he cared about Oakland.
It's too bad for Oakland and for Jerry. The public -- which insists on being stupid -- is blinded by a polyanic view of a Jerry Brown that in point of fact doesn't exist: the person who can walk in and wave a magic wand and make things better. He's the darling of the Bay Area White Liberals (not the Progressives -- a big difference in tha the Progressives don't pretend to be intellectual) who seem to hang on every work Jerry speaks that they think is really briliant. Drunk with Kool-Aid, Jerry could fart and they'd think they smelled roses. This observation includes much of the local San Francisco Media.
The difference between Jerry's run for Oakland Mayor and Ron Dellums current effort is that Dellums isn't looking to remake his political suit. He was drafted by a large group of Oaklanders and Progressives who are concerned that Oakland was thrown off track by Jerry.
What bothers me is this very vailed racism that says "Ron Dellums will not support (white) development or (white) business," and that's balony. A city is more than bricks and mortar, it's people. Oakland's California's most diverse city. Those who oppose Dellums don't seem to understand that all Oaklanders must feel their city is theirs and not someone elses.
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