More Oakland election confusion. You might have seen online ads for SOS Oakland. It is an "independent expenditure committee" that is so completely independent of the candidates that its main organizer, longtime City Hall insider/real estate lobbyist Greg McConnell, didn't ask some of the candidates if it was okay to put them on the slate he's pushing.

As a result, Zac Unger (D1 City Council), a staunch supporter of Mayor Thao before and after she got elected by 670 RCV votes and opposed to both recalls, is on the same McConnell-run slate as Judge Brenda Harbin-Forte, the head of the Mayor Thao Recall, and LeRonne Armstrong, the police chief that Mayor Thao rashly fired.

Judge Brenda (whom I work with on the Mayor Thao recall) is running for City Attorney, and former chief Armstrong is running for At-Large Council.

McConnell had taken a page from the 2022 mayor race when coal money supporters of Ignacio De La Fuente funded an independent committee slate that listed Loren Taylor with IDLF.

Then, Loren Taylor had to explain that he had no say in getting on that slate.

Normally, slate organizers take a percentage of the money raised as compensation. I have no idea if that's how SOS is being run.

Gotta love Oakland politics....