This just may be a race after all

BLee's acknowledgment that she has no experience in city government is giving Loren Taylor's campaign a chance to turn her strength into a liability

Oakland special mayoral election candidates Barbara Lee and Loren Taylor. Eight others are also vying for the office on April 15.

☕️MORNING BUZZ

—Barbara Lee is extremely well-known in these parts and across the country. Before leaving Congress last December, Lee served in the House for the past 24 years. Her experience in government is inherent. Experience is her strength.

What Lee’s shockingly poor appearance at the Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club this week showed is that an inordinate amount of unforced errors that even tennis player Novak Djokovic could not overcome has put Lee’s strength under attack.

An upstart opponent defying conventional thinking by attacking an opponent’s strength, rather than shying away from it, is a tried and true political strategy. It’s also easier said than done.

But it’s not so difficult if the opponent twice declares on video that they have no experience in city government, as Lee did this week.

On Thursday, Loren Taylor’s mayoral campaign seized the opportunity and called out Lee’s comments, along with another doozy that she “had not done mayor yet.”

Surprisingly, and seemingly overnight, Lee looks beatable.

—More inside:

• Pleasanton reassures immigrants worried about immigration raids

• Old social media postings disparaging the Democratic Party may have scuttled candidate’s bid for San Leandro Dem Club leadership.

• Taylor exploits Lee’s flubs in campaign fundraising email

• Early campaign finance reports in Oakland’s special mayoral election

• How much money did it take to recall Sheng Thao? How much to recall Pamela Price?

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