Jack Scott?
Jack Scott?
At 8:06 this morning when the name glided into my email, it sounded distantly recognizable. But it definitely was not a head-turner.
Dave Jacobson, who handles communications for Los Angeles City Attorney candidate Mike Feuer, has needed both hands and at least one foot to notify the world of the avalanche of endorsements for his boss. Probably close to a record for a hometown race.
Mr. Jacobson tells us Mr. Scott is a former state senator and was chancellor of the state community college system.
Oh.
Two hours ago, U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters’s endorsement of Wendy (Vote for Me Because I Am a Girl) Greuel for mayor in the May 21 runoff was announced.
Considerably better known than Mr. Scott, Ms. Waters’s prized support in South Los Angeles was chased by both candidates because she will deliver black votes. Neither Eric Garcetti nor Ms. Greuel has made a meaningful impression yet on the black community even though they are so liberal they almost meet themselves coming back around.
If Mr. Scott’s endorsement means two votes for Mr. Feuer, I will buy you dinner at any venue of my choice.
Home. Yours.
Ms. Waters, who briefly dated Methuselah after his messy second divorce, has been in Congress for so many decades that her hair genuinely was the color she pretends it is today.
She may be a battleaxe, but she will bring votes that Vote for Me Because I Am a Girl badly, if not desperately, needs.
What Is the Answer?
In today’s swiftly changing environment, do endorsements matter?
The Los Angeles Titanic addressed the subject separately this morning, in a commentary and a news story. Predictably, they fumbled the assignment.
Essayist Jim Newton, who owns a clarity gene, examined the Greuel-Garcetti race under the lamp of endorsement. He walked away shrugging. By the time you finish, you ask why you wasted energy only to reach a conclusion dripping mud.
He quotes the strategist Parke Skelton saying that “endorsements can be important but they’re usually not determinative.”
True, but Mr. Newton never closes his argument. He fails to tell us how this specifically applies to the mayor’s race.
The most recent poll calls Garcetti-Greuel 44 percent to 43.
Are Ms. Greuel’s hefty labor endorsements – huge money, mobs of bodies, both as volunteers and as voters –worth more than Mr. Garcetti’s numerous political endorsements?
Switching to the city attorney’s race, from the start, endorsements have afforded Mr. Feuer, the challenger, world-class momentum against incumbent Carmen Trutanich.
Should you doubt, a month ago, Mr. Feuer defeated Mr. Trutanich by 14 points in the primary. The latest polling gives him a whopping 18-point lead.
Reporter Jean Merl, said to be two weeks younger than Ms. Waters, merely recited a laundry list of who is backing whom, without mentioning an incidental point: The race was lopsided in the primary, and it appears to still have one leg shorter than the other.
Was the equally lopsided endorsement race a significant factor?
