I am pretty sure that her views are pretty liberal but it does not really matter when the local business leaders pick up the phone and tell these so-called "elected representatives" to restore business as usual if they want see campaign money coming.
Wojtek
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Just speculation on my part. The occupation is in the middle of Oakland's re-developed business center. The city has spent decades trying to get economic urban development going. The east bay, except Emeryville has been struggling under the same bank and corporate redline policies. They don't like the political establishment because it is `progressive' and they don't like the minority and immigrant population. They especally don't like the strong unions in this town, because the ILWW controls the port and Teamsters control the trucking hub, and whatever union controls the rail lines.
Berkeley finally got some relief from the corporate boycott when Bayer took over some of the UCB land and built a major bioscience laboratory here. The Dept of Energy took over another parcel as well as part of the old Proctor & Gamble factory that had been closed since the 1980s
So my guess is that Quan had some phone calls and or meetings with business leaders. There is much more than just campaign money at stake
They told her if she didn't show some control and get `those' people out, they were going to start leaving or cutting back their Oakland operations, citing economic `instability'. In other words they were going back to redline policies. Oakland has some prime industrial development land running all along its bay front, including the northern section of Alameda Island with the closed Naval Air Station. The port and its truck and rail transportation hub are just north. Except for the port the rest is completely under used. The Naval Air Station just sits with weeds in the tarmak, and wind blowing across its flat, and throught its broken windows. It is very erie to be on a close military base. Treasure Island is like that. You can see pictures of what Treasure Is. was like in the 1950s in the movie Mutiny on the Caine. They used the base as location for the trial, with the big admirality HQ for the Pacific Theater.
However, with US manufacturing going off shore there is little local manufacturing and industrial development. This kind of development is critical to Oakland's economic base. Brown could get nowhere, Dellums was in nomandsland with these bastards. Quan made promises she will not be able to keep. Even total capitulation to neoliberalism doesn't work.
CG
ps. Don't argue with me tonight. I am getting really drunk. The asshole community org just fired my best boss without warning, in the most stupid decision I've ever lived through. I got it together this afternoon, just long enough to write a very polite and humble e-mail to his boss, begging him to reconsider this decision. They didn't shoot themselves in the foot. They sat on a shotgun and pulled the trigger.