After spending nearly four years excoriating Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums in his weekly column, Chip Johnson this week writes that he wants him to run again.

Johnson is worried about voter turnout and believes a Dellums candidacy would “enliven the whole race.” Johnson didn’t miss a chance to get in a couple jabs: “I know what you're thinking. You think I want Dellums to receive the electoral thrashing that many Oakland residents believes [sic] he so richly deserves.”

There’s been a lot of speculation in the past few days about whether the embattled mayor would seek re-election—ever since the Chronicle ran a big story saying he would announce this coming Friday, the filing deadline, and quoted supporters who have endorsed other candidates.

It's nice to see the Chronicle giving the mayoral race some intention. We broke the news about Dellums’ plans on July 12, and ran the story about his supporters a few days later. Just saying.

Beyond the Chronicle, not everybody is convinced Dellums should run.

In an e-mail blast, City Hall gadfly Sanjiv Handa made one of the more convincing arguments that he would not:

“If his advisors really wanted to keep everyone guessing, they would have paid the city clerk a $50 deposit and picked up nominating petitions when filings for city offices opened on July 12. Because that process has not been started, it is almost a certainty that Dellums will be a one-term mayor, something that has not happened in Oakland since Mayor Joseph E. Smith in 1949.”

We’ll have the news about Dellums here on Friday.