Jackie Leung's apparent victory over Steve McCoid warms my progressive heart

It's election night.

Time for me to say "I told you so!" to those progressives who either thought Jackie Leung couldn't best Steve McCoid in the Ward 4 Salem City Council race, or felt that that McCoid was an acceptable moderate, so endorsed him even though Leung was by far the better candidate.

Have a look, Councilors Tom Andersen and Chris Hoy, both of whom endorsed McCoid. Have a look, board members of Progressive Salem, who ignored requests to support the more liberal candidate in the Ward 4 race. 

Now, a 184 vote lead in Ward 4 likely will hold up. But it might not. So I'm only proclaiming "I told you so" with 95% of my political voice, since it's possible that the final vote could favor McCoid. 

It just griped me that so few progressive political types in Salem saw in Jackie Leung what I and so many others saw: a woman of color who is smart, cool and collected, with a great family and an appealing vision for Salem.

Let this be a lesson to those who thought Leung couldn't win.

It is way better to back someone who has excellent progressive credentials, and have that person lose, than to back a moderate like McCoid just because... I don't know why, maybe because he's a colleague on the City Council?

The endorsements from Andersen and Hoy that McCoid featured in his campaign irked me. I'll be honest about that.

I like Councilors Tom Andersen and Chris Hoy a lot. I respect their right to endorse McCoid. I just wish they had taken a closer look at Jackie Leung before throwing their political weight in McCoid's direction.

And I can't resist saying to Andersen, how good a friend of yours is Steve McCoid if he can't even spell your last name correctly?

Comments

[AshleyW]

She didn't need them because she talked about neighborhood issues. I think focusing on real life situations instead of labels makes sense since city council decisions affect residents' in similar ways whether they identify with labels or not. ButI don't understand why city councilors and the Progressive Salem group--who might not even live in Ward 4--felt like they needed to endorse Steve McCoid at all, but especially before the deadline for candidates to file to run? It makes them look out of touch with the community. It's like they assumed there woudn't be another candidate just because they hadn't heard of one.

[Jim Scheppke]

As a member of the Progressive Salem Board I need first to correct the comment by Ashley W. Progressive Salem did NOT endorse Steve McCoid. Please don't spread misinformation. We decided in late 2017 to endorse Tom Andersen, Chris Hoy and Micki Varney. This was long before Jackie decided to run. When Jackie approached us we decided we had our hands full with three candidates. As it turned out Tom and Chris were fortunate and did not draw an opponent, but we did not know this for sure until the filing day in March. So we were able to devote all our efforts to electing Micki, but even that was not enough. At least one person involved in Jackie's campaign commented to me that not having the P. S. endorsement might have worked to Jackie's advantage in a pretty conservative ward. In hindsight I think Progressive Salem made the right decision. I think criticism of our decision-making is unwarranted.

[Lisa B.]

This is awesome. Steve McCoid is a nice guy but he just wasn't willing to stand up for the people who live in this Ward over the developers who are running ramshod over all of us. Here's hoping Jacqueline Leung will be able to make a difference!

[AshleyW]

Oh, okay. I see where I misunderstood the blog post, sorry. Thanks for explaining it.