We have a mayor’s race coming up this November, believe it or not. Most of the pundits I follow have agreed there are four main candidates. Today, I discuss two of them, Mindy Pechenuk and Seneca Scott. Tomorrow I’ll deal with Brenda Grisham and Barbara Lee.
Mindy Pechenuk. She ran for mayor last year, and was quickly eliminated in ranked choice voting. The year before (2024) she ran for City Council for the at-large seat, and similarly was quickly eliminated. In 2022, she ran for the Assembly as the Republican candidate, and was defeated by Mia Bonta. Penechuk has thus turned into a perennial candidate, the Harold Stassen of Oakland.
Clearly, Oakland is not ready to elect a pro-Trump Republican. Pechenuk does have some good positions, though. I agree with her when she says, “It is necessary to rid the police of these oversight boards and remove the Oakland City Ordinances that are prohibiting the police from doing their duties.” I also agree when she argues for OPD to have at least 1,000 sworn officers. She has no answer for ending homelessness or encampments, except to blame “the Bontas, Barbara Lee and Gavin Newsom.” That’s just tired, old MAGA propaganda, the kind of desperation junk Steve Hilton, the Republican candidate for Governor, routinely throws out. As for Oakland’s finances, Pechenuk’s solution to our budget woes is to “work with the help of the Federal Government of President Trump [and] get Federal help to finance new industry and manufacturers to come into Oakland and rebuild.” That is not only delusional, it’s a dodge, and is intellectually dishonest. With her slavish devotion to Trump, Pechenuk magically uses his name as her solution to every problem, as though he’s some kind of Jesus Christ. Mindy Pechenuk is unfit to hold any kind of power in Oakland.
Seneca Scott. I’ve known Seneca since 2020 or 2021. He was already planning to run for mayor, and sought me out, as President of the Coalition for a Better Oakland, to seek my support. We did endorse him for mayor in the 2022 election, which he lost badly. I was among his strongest backers in the Coalition, and my support for him carried the day. However, I must now admit I was wrong. I liked Seneca. He was weird, but interesting. I was excited by his unusualness, his energy, his speaking ability, and his intention to overturn the existing order. But even then, some of his characteristics bothered me. He loved the sound of his own voice. He would resort to personal attacks on his adversaries, rather than debating them in the realm of ideas. Back then, I didn’t fully understand the extent of his anger, vengefulness and lack of civility. These negative qualities emerged more strongly after he lost the election. Seneca, sadly, turned into a truly unlikeable demagogue. Rude, insulting, foul-mouthed, defensive, he seemed to mimic Donald Trump’s worst personality traits. Having said that, I share with Seneca his dislike of the disreputable Carroll Fife, and I admire Seneca’s leadership in the Thao recall.
Were Seneca to be elected, it would be a disaster for Oakland, but fortunately, there’s no chance of that happening. If he really does run, he has no natural constituency, and would gain the votes only of a few disgruntled dummies. I wouldn’t be surprised if Pechenuk got more votes than him. He could have been a contender, but instead got lost in the weeds of his unruly temperament.