This past week, between homework and extended internet browsing, I saw something that sparked my curiosity. “Who, exactly, is this Peter Liu guy?” I soon proclaimed to myself aloud, “He can’t be serious.”
These days, we’re all familiar with internet trolls. They go online to make outrageous proclamations to get a rise out of others. They enjoy upsetting people, making people angry, and generally just want attention. On occasion those attitudes spill out into real life. If Peter Liu isn’t trolling us, then he might just be one of the worst mayoral candidates to ever make it onto the ballot.
Liu first gained my attention when I came across his answer to a candidate question posted on oakmayor2014.com. The question asked candidates what they will do to improve conditions for bicyclers in Oakland. The answers range from typical, to insightful, to obviously meaningless, but then there was Liu, whose answer was accompanied by a picture of him in an adidas t-shirt holding a rather large gun.
Liu’s solution? Horses. Yes, the candidate suggests bringing horses back to Oakland as a main source of transportation. His colorful response begins with the line “These bicyclists need to learn what the [expletive deleted] is a red light. . . I’ve seen their [expletive deleted] ride through the red light like they’re Rambo.” He goes on to explain that bicyclists aren’t as cool as he is, and that he likes horses, particularly his horse named, “Horsey.”
I looked deeper into Liu’s campaign, and was surprised to see that he does almost seem to be serious. Liu sent out a number of campaign emails recently, and Oakland blogger Zennie Abraham replied to one of them questioning Liu’s seriousness. Liu personally responded by saying, among other things, that he had “killed multiple people just to survive” and that “promoting LGBT activity is a deadly sin.”
Amongst the insanity, I found one article, from OaklandNorth, that took Liu’s campaign seriously and touted him as a conservative candidate focused on economic growth. Unfortunately for Liu, this bit of support is overshadowed by his abrasive and questionable personality.
He calls himself “the greatest leader in the world.” Is he trolling us all, or is he just genuinely peculiar? I’m honestly still not sure.