Live in front of a studio audience: Notes from Thursday’s AD20 candidate forum
Emeryville mandates sugar substitute ‘gugar’ for school meals
—AD20 FORUM NOTES—What a difference it is to actually see candidates flesh out their ideas in the flesh rather than the antiseptic environs of Zoom. The three Democratic candidates in this June’s primary for the 20th Assembly District spent over an hour taking questions from the San Leandro Democratic Club on Thursday night. The event was held in person at the San Leandro Library (The library, however, still mandates that people wear masks while using its event rooms.)
—For several months, this race to replace Assemblymember Bill Quirk has failed to have any direction for how the candidates intend to run their campaigns. No real narrative has emerged. Candidates forums held on Zoom appeared to affected this race more than others in the East Bay. There was very little humanity behind their words. Some of the candidates were merely reading off detailed scripts. Nothing much was gained from these events.
—But Thursday night’s endorsement meeting, which was followed by Jennifer Esteen’s surprising endorsement by San Leandro Democrats, highlights just how much can be gleaned from just being in the room with candidates.
—Whereas, Liz Ortega appeared wooden and out of her league on Zoom, she was a revelation in front of a live audience. Ortega threaded the needle between conveying the seriousness of the issues facing the district and state and showing a lighthearted personality. The perfect candidate is someone who has done their homework and is personally likable. Ortega did that on Thursday night and her preparation was also notable. However, she did appear to working from copious notes and answered some questions like she had just crammed for the test the night before. Nevertheless, Ortega’s responses were extemporaneous and strong. She also glanced often at her husband and campaign staffer for what seemed like confirmation of her performance, but her confidence is quickly building.
—Ortega, the leader of the powerful Alameda Labor Council, said she would continue her work on the labor front. “One job is enough,” Ortega said of the need for good, high-paying jobs. “Not two, three or four just to pay the rent.” Later, Ortega said she led Alameda County cities in gaining paid sick-leave and hazard pay for essential workers during the pandemic and blasted Amazon’s plan for a warehouse in Hayward and Tesla’s poor record of employee safety and misconduct toward its Black workers in Fremont. She joked about once killing then-Assemblymember Rob Bonta’s bill in Sacramento, “and he still endorsed my campaign!” she added.
—Similarly, Jennifer Esteen is a different candidate in a live setting. Her empathy level is high, but sincere. You can tell her training as a nurse as instilled a great ability to understand and help someone when they are facing their worst troubles. It came through on a number of answers that showed she understood the plight of those struggling to keep up and the stress that follows. Health care and housing are tied together, Esteen said, “You can’t be healthy if you don’t know where you’re going to sleep.” Esteen spoke of passing the Green New Deal as a tool for job creation, advocated for a vacancy tax to stop landlords from keeping units empty, and a massive state bond fund, “tens of billions” for building new housing.
—Shawn Kumagai, the Dublin councilmember from newest portion of the redrawn 20th Assembly District, was clearly the opposite. Throughout the hour forum, Kumagai seemed disconnected from the audience, perhaps, uncomfortable outside of the Tri-Valley? (San Leandro is also new to the Hayward-centric AD20.) Kumagai was nonetheless strong on the issues.
—Kumagai wants to bolster vocational programs for students and veterans that could steer them toward jobs in cybersecurity, coding, and health care. He also supports reforming the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and creating a new form of the California Redevelopment Agency. Though, when it came to the climate change, Kumagai offered the novel, although speculative, idea of carbon sequestration. The idea is currently borderline sci-fi, if not, cost prohibitive, at this time, for the minuscule dent it can make in reducing carbon emissions in the air.
—But Kumagai’s struggles with the audience in San Leandro persisted. Near the end of the forum, when a member asked the candidate if they would volunteer to hand out the club’s literature while the canvass door-to-door, Ortega and Esteen said yes, but Kumagai joked he would only do so if they endorsed his campaign. His closing statement focused on the potentially dwindling number of Asian American state legislators. Being the only Asian American in the field, Kumagai’s comments felt too blunt and bordering on shaming the group if they didn’t support his candidacy.
MORE IN THIS ISSUE: AD20 Forum: Behind the Scenes | Emeryville’s ‘Gugar’ Mandate | Big Money Flows to Terry Wiley | Moneyball | Official June Primary Ballot is Here. Links Included |
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