First of two parts
In spite of upstart freshman Independent Bill Bloomfield’s steadily expanding confidence that he can engineer the upset of the year on Election Day, Congressional veteran Henry Waxman demonstrated last night that he still is capable of dishing out a sound schooling to whippersnappers in the fine art of wily political survival.
They brought the one of the country’s most watched races to always quirky Venice, where male officials wear tee-shirts, middle-aged ponytails and pants that resign at the knees.
For a bare but sizzling 20 minutes the candidates were allotted at a clunkily operated Venice Neighborhood Council meeting, there was no question that Mr. Waxman, icon, was the hero of the standing room, out-the-door crowd. Mr. Bloomfield was received politely.
Choosing Sides?
Neighborhood Council President Linda Lucks, tilting slightly, noted that she has known – and yeah, kind of liked – Mr. Waxman since he was a kid with hair in the state Assembly 44 years ago. The audience lapped it up the way a brawny cat attacks homogenized milk on a leaky saucer.
The 73-year-old Democrat not only has lasted but starred in Washington for 38 grueling years because he is a fast study, capable of pivoting mercurially, especially when his next breath hinges on it.
Since surfing into Washington on the Watergate tidal wave, he has been the undoubted, virtually unchallenged, king of Westside Congressional politics, outlasting every peer, and no one has stood up to him.
He Had to Change
Elected to Congress a belly-whopper 19 times, Mr. Waxman, who has served under 10 Presidents, had no intention of retiring – until Mr. Bloomfield forced him to campaign for the first time.
Veterans – homeless, ailing, unemployed and rejected in large numbers by their supposed protectors – have been feuding with Mr. Waxman over his alleged inattention to their desperation.
For several years, loudly angered veterans’ groups have been roasting the Congressman for arrogantly ignoring their full wall of complaints surrounding perceived abuses related to the National Veterans Home and their tragic massive homeless plight.
During the 10 minutes he was granted for a re-election pitch in the reconfigured 33rd District, Mr. Waxman sounded like a blend from the Joint Chiefs of Staff and and the U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs.
Conciliatory and concerned, he was not just on the veterans’ bandwagon. He was driving it, emphasizing that he has been the baron of bipartisanship throughout his four decades.
This was a strategically placed assertion since Mr. Bloomfield’s main campaign focus is to solve the hyper-partisanship that largely has shut down the House.
Fighting for Veterans
After reciting about a dozen major legislative accomplishments, accenting the primary role he seized, Mr. Waxman warmed to what has been a major irritant for him.
“Homeless is a big problem,” he said while standing in the middle of homeless country. “We have been working with social agencies in Santa Monica and in Venice. We have got to do something about it, working together.
“I am particularly concerned about the homelessness of veterans. As a representative of the West L.A. VA campus, I have been spending a great deal of my time since President George W. Bush took office in 2001 to stop the Republicans from selling off that property. That is what they wanted to do, sell it to the highest bidder.
“They had a secretary, who was chairman of the Republican party before he became Secretary of the VA, and he wanted to sell off the (National Home) property and use it for veterans.
“We now have a Majority Leader (in the House, Eric Cantor (R-VA), who, in the negotiations on the budget, wanted to sell it and use the money for deficit reduction.
“That land was given for the use of the veterans, and I am going to fight to keep it for the veterans.”
The crowd applauded heavily, and Mr. Waxman resumed.
“We will try to make sure that services are there on campus for veterans,” he said. “And I have been very involved in making sure psychiatric services are available. We also are trying to get therapeutic housing for homeless veterans.
“I was able to get with Sen. (Dianne) Feinstein (D-CA), $20 million for the VA to rehab one of the buildings. I am very frustrated it has taken as long as it has for them to get that going.
“I have written to Gen. (Eric T.) Shinseki, the head of the VA, that we want this project started right now.”
(To be continued)
