MISSING COUNCILMEMBERS AND HISSING REPUBLICANS

I have often said that in the 16 years since I've been back in my home town–almost all of them living in Oakland's District 7–I have never actually seen my Councilmember inside the boundaries of my district. That takes in three separate Councilmembers: Leo Bazile, Dezzie Woods-Jones, and, now, Larry Reid. For the record, I am not claiming that none of my Councilmembers have never set foot in the district. Just not in the places where I frequent, during the times that I frequent them. And I am also not claiming that they are purposely avoiding me. It just so happens that I ain't happened up on them, is all.
       
You can say the same thing, I suppose for my Mayor and my At-Large City Councilmember. Except that the Mayor, Mr. Brown, I can now see on television every night, if I want, urging me to buy my car at Oakland's Auto Row. And for the last several days, my At-Large City Councilmember, Mr. Henry Chang, has been showing up on enormous billboards along International and MacArthur, peaceful, benevolent, smiling down upon me as I drive by, reassuring me that he is out there, somewhere, helping Oakland to move forward. Since this cannot be a message of common accomplishment–Oakland east of the Fruitvale seems, after all, to be moving in a distinctly backward direction these days?one can only assume that the Chang billboards are a parently admonition for me and my neighbors to just hustle and catch up, now, or we are going to have to be left behind.
    
That my At-Large City Councilmember is normally so invisible–his own way of describing himself, by the way–is apparently by design. We learn from this morning's Tribune, and I quote extensively, that:  "Councilmember Danny Wan, who is helping to orchestrate Chang's campaign, said his colleague is not comfortable trumpeting his accomplishments and worries about stepping on the toes of the other council members, who are elected by district."

"He's quiet," Mr. Wan is quoted in the Tribune as saying, "but speaks up when it matters."  The operative "when it matters," one might suppose, is when Mr. Chang must come back before the voters for re-election. And having known and studied politicians much of my adult life, it is my distinct impression that the only time this category of citizen does not trumpet its own accomplishments is when it simply has no notes to play.
   
Meanwhile, in a matter totally unrelated to Mr. Chang, one notes with some concern the reports in the Los Angeles Times coming out of the recent California state convention of our good friends, the Republicans, in Burlingame. Each political party is allowed to pick its own issues with which to highlight and, not being a registered Republican myself, I leave it to my Republican brothers and sisters to decide upon their own. Still, it is the way in which they choose to present those issues that is somewhat disturbing.
      
In speaking about the reluctance of Attorney General Lockyer to be dictated to on the issue of gay marriages by Governor Schwarzenegger, Mr. Howard Kaloogian remarked "I don't know where the attorney general stands on this. Perhaps he stands in line." The line to which Mr. Kaloogian refers, presumably, is the recent gathering of gay and lesbian couples lining up to marry in the City and County of San Francisco. It's one's right to take a position on one side or the other on gay and lesbian marriages, of course, but this takes us back to the old, locker room days when calling someone a "fag" was a proper and acceptable put-down. The Los Angeles Times certainly saw it that way, characterizing Mr. Kaloogian's remarks as "question[ing] the sexual orientation" of Mr. Lockyer.  That Mr. Kaloogian is no fringe demonstrator standing on the convention steps, but rather one of the three candidates in the Republican primary for the United States Senate, makes it all the more disturbing.
       
Mr. Kaloogian, the former state Assemblymember from Encinitas and the former chairperson of the Recall Gray Davis Committee (I suppose he prefers "Assemblyman" and "chairman", but since it's my column, I'll call him what I want), also figured prominently in the other incidents of baiting at the Republican convention, that aimed at illegal immigrant workers.

At a Kaloogian rally just outside the convention hotel, the LA Times reports two boys wearing Kaloogian For Senate T-shirts carrying posters reading "No Terrorist Driver's License" (referring, one might remember, to the law-passed by the California legislature and later rescinded under pressure of the election of Governor Schwarzenegger-to grant drivers licenses to illegal immigrants). The posters, the Times also reported, had photographs of Al Queda leader Osama bin Laden.
 
These are people who feel, I suppose, that the sweet little Ecuadorean ladies cleaning toilets for a living over in those Marin County mansions hide explosive devices up their drawers.
       
Also at the Kaloogian rally, the chairperson of the Glenn County Republican Party complained that "the main street in our little town (some 100 miles north of Sacramento) looks like Tijuana." As in, a lot of Mexicans, one wonders?
 
Republican United States Congressmember Tom Tancredo, who came out for the activities from his home in Colorado, blasted Republican President Bush's proposal to legalize some of our presently-illegal immigrant workers, stating that "People are still coming across our borders with the intent to do terrible things to us," though one might think that the terrible occurrence might be if that Ecuadorean woman stops cleaning those Marin County toilets, forcing their lovely employers to get down on their knees and do it themselves.
     
And another Republican delegate, this one from Millbrae, simply cut to the chase, hanging a sign around his neck reading "No Way Jose."
       
How far a step is that, one wonders, from "Nigger Go Home?" One wonders. One worries. A beast seems about to be unleashed.