Oakland Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente’s in hot water over a campaign approach that overstepped the bounds of appropriate taste in his battle for the current At-Large City Council seat held by Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan.
VOTE FOR KAPLAN FOR OAKLAND AT LARGE
A letter sent by the The East Bay Stonewall Democratic Club this evening says that Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente issued what the club, and Stonewall chair Brendalynn Goodall called “a series of homophobic attacks launched against incumbent citywide Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan.” Now, some may disagree with the title of this blog post, but the bottom line message of the strongly-worded press release is that the LGBT Club is basically saying Ignacio is a homophobe. Their desire is to launch as incendiary an attack on Ignacio as he launched to Rebecca.
The club explains that in one email, De La Fuente had his city hall aide dress up in “butch” clothing with the tongue-in-cheek claim that Kaplan was volunteering at his headquarters. In the second email, he denounces Kaplan for spearheading a change to an arcane law that prohibits citizens from dressing in clothes of the opposite sex.
“Mocking someone’s femininity or masculinity is what is the heart of the anti-bullying campaign going on nationwide,” said Stonewall chair Brendalynn Goodall. “Words and images like those used in De La Fuente’s emails to supporters is hurtful to the intended target, but also sends the wrong message to our impressionable youth that mocking someone’s sexual orientation or how they look is OK. This is nothing more than bullying in the guise of political messaging.”
“We would like to reiterate our strong support for Rebecca Kaplan,” said Goodall. “An attack on one person is an attack on all of us.”
This blogger forecast this kind of behavior against Rebecca when Joe Tuman was considering running against her, but to think someone, especially Ignacio, would do it, is something else entirely. The word is “dirty.”
Still, it’s clear that De La Fuente, and the Oakland Police Officers Association, have no problem unleashing their nastiest and most divisive attacks against Kaplan. Part of their anger has to do with a recent accusation by the Oakland Police Department that Rebecca smeared them during an impromptu meetup with people protesting the murder of Alan Blueford.
According to The Oakland Tribune Kaplan said that the reason OPD has the officer who show Alan, Miguel Masso, on the beat in that area, even though he had a violent past, was that “they move officers around as if from parish to parish like Catholic priests.”
Rebecca says the quote came from someone else in the crowd.
Here’s Rebecca when she talked about her run for re-election to the At Large seat, and her support of Mario Juarez for the District Five seat.
Stay tuned.