A truly bizarre article in Dallas’ Only Daily Newspaper this morning, in which columnist Jacquielynn Floyd — hardly the paper’s heaviest hitter — defends The News’ coverage of Ed Oakley’s sexual orientation. I especially loved the headline, which made no sense at all.
The News’ coverage of the recently completed mayoral campaign may or may not have been fair (it leaned toward Tom Leppert, but just a bit), but whatever bias it showed had very little to do with Oakley’s homosexuality. It had everything to do with what was beneficial for the News. The Construction Magnate was the candidate of the city’s Anglo business establishment, so why is it surprising that The News wanted him elected? That Oakley was gay probably wasn’t an issue with The News; that he was not a Park Cities, GOP kind of guy certainly was. (Which raises the issue of why so many non-Establishment types like Oakley so desperately want to belong to a club that doesn’t want them as a member. If anyone ever figures this out, let me know.)
Oakley lost because he ran a miserable campaign, not because he was gay. He would have lost if he was straight, from Pluto or whatever. In East Dallas, we have elected four gay councilmen — Craig McDaniel, Craig Holcomb, Chris Luna and John Loza — yet Oakley lost almost all of East Dallas, often by huge margins. That’s because he didn’t address the issues that matter to us, like city services. Pave our streets, and we don’t care who you sleep with. No doubt some people voted against Oakley because he was gay. This is Dallas, after all, not San Francisco. But that attitude didn’t decide the election.
In fact, I’d even argue that it was, in some respects, an advantage. It gave Oakley a committed base, which is crucial in a runoff. In addition, the Dallas gay community is more politically savvy than the black or Hispanic community, another advantage in a runoff. All of which just points out how pathetic Oakley’s campaign was.
