Ignacio De La Fuente’s run for the Oakland City Council Seat currently held by Rebecca Kaplan has a handful of insiders talking about what made IDF do it? His Thursday announcement on the Oakland City Council steps drew just 20 community leaders, including Noel Gallo and Oakland City Council District Six Leader Desley Brooks. So, the heads have the idea that Larry Tramutola, the locally-famed campaign consultant and leader of Tramutola Advisers in Oakland was behind IDF’s run.
Here’s how the idea goes:
It was Larry Tramutola who was behind Ignacio’s run and you know that IDF’s never ran for anything without Larry. See, Larry has two clients, Ignacio and Noel Gallo. But if IDF ran, Noel would have to fire Larry, because it would be a conflict of interest for him. Plus, it would not make Larry money. So now, Larry has two clients running separate races: IDF for At-Large and Gallo for District Five. Plus, IDF polls well in each Oakland Council District but his own, where he’s behind both Gallo and Mario Juarez. Moreover, this smooths over Ignacio’s little issue with Gallo, where Gallo believed he was being endorsed by him but Ignacio said he never signed a paper to do so. Well, that’s smoothed over.
Ok, now here’s why that’s wrong. Because I called Larry Tramutola today and he said he’s not working for Ignacio and that IDF never called him to ask for his view. Moreover, Larry all but said that Ignacio could not win, stopping short of that by saying he was taking a “big risk.” I have the feeling that had IDF talked to Ignacio, that press deal or whatever it was that was so poorly reported – one observer called it a mess – would not have happened.
There’s more so stay tuned.