Getting your
Trinity Audioplayer ready...This spring, as part of the endorsement process of this news organization’s editorial board, I spoke with 49 candidates for elected office in California.
That meant hourlong Zoom calls with candidates up and down the ballots of voters in our four core counties — Santa Clara, San Mateo, Alameda and Contra Costa. Think people running for municipal roles, such as city council; county jobs, such as assessor, district attorney, superintendent of schools, supervisor and clerk-recorder; California offices, such as state senate, insurance commissioner, lieutenant governor and treasurer; and the U.S. House of Representatives.
Our readers want — and deserve — to know whom to entrust with power, and it was an honor to have the privilege of helping them sort the wheat from the chaff.
Now that the dust has settled on the June 2 primary, I’ve had a little time to gather my thoughts on the experience before the Nov. 3 general election.
Here are some observations:
They’re paranoid — with reason.
Some suspect they’re being watched all the time. In higher-profile races, they really are. Deep-pocketed interest groups pay “oppo” researchers to dig up dirt on them and for private investigators to tail them.
One candidate, who told me she was being followed by a PI, said: “My personal life is really boring. Let them waste their money following me around.”
Candidates’ hypervigilance often applies to longtime incumbents sitting on large campaign war chests. They know their political fortunes can change in an afternoon. Cash cushions their concerns, but a charismatic upstart with strong social media game can unseat them with a 10-second TikTok post if it goes viral. That weighs on them. And it manifests in frantic calls demanding positive coverage or desperate attempts to pitch hyped-up hit pieces on their opponents.
You can hear the anxiety in their cracking voices during late-night calls.
They’re always on.
Speaking of late-night calls … they make a lot of them. During the campaign, candidates are in a state of constant alertness. The lines between their personal and professional lives blur, and their staffers expect calls 24/7. It’s not uncommon for candidates to text reporters back after 11 on a Friday night in response to requests for comment sent at 9 that morning.
There is no off time.
They think charisma trumps know-how.
To be sure, this doesn’t apply to all. There are, in fact, some very qualified candidates out there, but over-confidence is definitely in over-supply.
Here’s a classic example: I asked a candidate running for a powerful statewide post what his plan was. His answer boiled down to: “Plan? I don’t need one. Just put me in a room with everybody, and I’ll make a deal!”
Another candidate for a highly technical county office told me that he didn’t need experience in the field because he can find and hire smart people to figure it out for him.
He got the job.
They believe AI is omniscient.
Far too many candidates think AI can solve an office’s hardest problems, and the certitude among candidates with tech backgrounds is off the charts. Have they ever deployed AI across a relevant government agency before? No. But they’re sure that they can just waltz right into the office, boot up Claude and find cost savings everywhere.
They consider audits to be almighty.
What AI can’t solve, the audit can. Internal investigations play an outsized role in the “reform” plans of many candidates. This pattern played out several times: For example, when I asked candidates for offices in Santa Clara and Alameda counties what cuts they’d make if they won, they told me they’d need to win first. Then they’d demand an audit.
In both cases, neither had been aware of recently published audits that directly addressed their concerns.
They want to receive endorsements, not give them.
Candidates all name-drop their high-profile backers. However, if you ask whom they’re supporting, many will tell you (off record) that it’s too risky to endorse. One candidate running for a statewide office told me that candidates “carry grudges for a long time,” so backing the wrong horse creates bad blood.
But if you must take a stand, hedge.
Like so:
When I asked one prominent Bay Area elected official whom he was backing in a local two-person race, he told me, “Both!”
Come November, both won’t be an option. We get one choice. My suggestion: pick the candidate with a vision and, as critically, the capacity to deliver on it.
Max Taves is the editorial page editor of Bay Area News Group. He can be reached at mtaves@bayareanewsgroup.com.