[img]2299|right|Sebastian Ridley-Thomas||no_popup[/img]When you are the scion of a prominent, influential family in any profession, the game plan looks as if it came from the latest script of “Dumb and Dumber”:
Grab the right coattail with your right fist, the left coattail with your left fist, lift your shoes off terra firma, and prepare to soar toward the sky – without providing any firepower yourself.
Meet a young man who has spectacularly flipped the formula.
In his first year as an elected official, 29-year-old state Assemblyman Sebastian Ridley-Thomas (D-Culver City/Crenshaw District), scion, emphatically has demonstrated he does not need coattails or any fancy crutch.
His nimble, ambitious, creative, unrelenting, aggressively curious mind serves as his own flying diesel engine.
Predictions Were on Target
Just as his supporters predicted a year ago this week, he has made what appears to be an enduring imprint in the state Assembly with much more to come. Normal freshman don’t. They just say “Thanks for letting me be here, one of the 120.”
At a mature 28 years old last December, Mr. Ridley-Thomas, son of the County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, politician of note for more than 30 years, won a special election to serve the final year of now-state Sen. Holly Mitchell’s term in the Assembly.
Perhaps before Mr. Ridley-Thomas’s 30th birthday, the more common popular reference may be that the elder (but hardly elderly) Mr. Ridley-Thomas “is the father of” rather than that the junior Mr. Ridley-Thomas “is the son of.”
The Sebastian Formula
As deft as a graying veteran, as eager as a green newcomer, he blends the most significant qualities and delivers results.
That was a widespread conclusion yesterday afternoon at City Hall at Mr. Ridley-Thomas’s community swearing-in, confirming last month’s election to his first full term in the lower chamber where his father once sat.
While the younger Mr. Ridley-Thomas still may trail his accomplished father as a compelling orator, in 12 months, again as forecast, he has become that rare freshman politician who whizzed so fast past early expectations, nobody remembers them.
Oh, he churns out mellifluous lines, takeaways that aroused yesterday’s enthusiastic, star-heavy crowd.
- “I am appreciative of two more years of job security.”
- In closing, “we must be mindful of the fact that many do not enjoy the blessings some of us take for granted.”
He is that unique political incarnation who may sound like a wonk but is not.
In 12 months, Mr. Ridley-Thomas swiftly has waded into the deep waters of the sexy s and the arcane with equal, and effective, vigor.
Named to six committees, he chairs one.
Collegiality, comradeship and unblinking dedication to old-fashioned hard work, night, day and in-between, have placed Sebastian Ridley-Thomas on a path to likely national prominence.
