[img]1881|right|Mr. Bradley||no_popup[/img]Dateline Compton – Hours after delivering a ringing speech that may have been the oration of his life, former Mayor Omar Bradley’s comeback was thwarted and his political career potentially ended when a little-known but lavishly financed young woman newcomer scored a lopsided victory in the heated race for mayor of Compton.
Gaining the drop on her more colorful, more accomplished opponent from the first counting, Aja Brown, 31, an urban planner with no political experience, won a resounding, never-doubted decision, 63.7 percent to 36.2 percent.
Ms. Brown drew 4,143 and Mr. Bradley, 2,360, a difference of almost 1800. The City Clerk’s office reported that 900 votes remain outstanding and will be counted early next week.
Seventy-five minutes after the polls closed, ballots from the first five precincts announced gave Ms. Brown, a relative newcomer to Compton who attracted wildly outsized backing from influential politicians and labor unions, a tall, and as it turned out, insurmountable, lead, 346 to 174.
Mystery of Her Appeal
Mr. Bradley said later that he believed there were three reasons the lightly credentialed Ms. Brown was a magnet for some of the richest interests in Los Angeles, including County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, the invulnerable County Federation of labor and other hardline unions:
- To defeat him with finality.
- To control/influence her the next four years as she feels her way along two years after City Hall laid her off from her planning job, that she is the puppet of the special interests.
- And least of all, in support of her vaguely stated platform.
But in mid-evening inside the lighthearted Bradley living room and dining area in west Compton, jollity was the tone of a crowd of family, social and religious friends, from young to mature, bursting to salute Mr. Bradley’s triumphant return from a decade of immeasurable setbacks.
It was not to be, although no one in the crowded, brightly shining rooms, knew that at 9:15 when the 55-year-old Mr. Bradley, a bear of a man, emerged from a private family setting to deliver a gilded, unscripted talk that should echo throughout Los Angeles city halls.
This was worlds removed from his last days in office in 2001, serving 2½ terms as mayor before being convicted of misappropriating $7,500 in public funds, a verdict later overturned.
He charged, unstintingly, that Ms. Brown did not merely exaggerate but lied about him.
Alluding to his opponent – never by name – as an outsider, Mr. Bradley, posted at the head of a food-laden table, began strongly, spoke evenly, and never retreated:
“We always think this race basically is going to be one of size. Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to come into a man’s community and paint him in such a manner that the people who know him will believe these lies. It’s difficult.
Weighing the Task
“The further you get away from where a man lives, where he has grown up, where he has made his living, the easier it is for people to believe what you say about him.
“We kind of always knew this was going to be a race between people who live on the East Side of town, who don’t really know me as well, and the people on the West Side, who know me, who grew up with me, like John, who I have known since I was 4, and Reggie who I have known since I was 7. These are people I grew up with. Our lifeblood is intermingled because we did so much together growing up.
“We know for a fact the highest vote totals were cast at Centennial High School, which is the alma mater of most of us. If you didn’t go to Centennial, your family members did if you are from the west side of town.
“The second highest vote is at Tibbey (Elementary), which is across the street from where my home was for 20 years.
Analyzing the Vote
“And then they are highest on the west side of town, and they begin to diminish as they go east. If those trends continue, it means it is going to be very difficult for her to win.
“That doesn’t mean she can’t. It just means the way the vote totals are coming in, it’s kind of like we expected it. At Centennial, they had so many people to vote they ran out of ballots. That’s a bad thing because we believe those ballots would have been cast for us.
“It’s a good thing because people who believe in our cause, they are there and they are voting.
“They are preparing to count the votes that are cast, and there will be a high number of provisionals. There is a strong chance we will not know who won, specifically, tonight. Those provisional ballots have to go to the County, and that always is a danger.
“We have maintained all along that the County of Los Angeles has its eye on Compton. We know the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor sent out at least five pieces of mail this week. The Los Angeles County Democratic Party sent out at least four pieces of mail this week.
Why Are They Doing This?
“I never have seen so much mail coming to a little place like Compton,” said the native son.
“It just makes you wonder, what’s so important about us?
“I know what it is. Three things. These are three things critical to remember about Compton.
“No. 1, we are rich in resources, underground, water, oil, minerals, the things that most of the time we overlook as a people because we are not attuned to looking for things. Understand? That is not us. We are interested in what is on top of the ground, not beneath it.
“No. 2 is, Compton is rich with water. Water is a major issue in this race, and many of the (original 12) candidates have received large amounts of water from people who deal with water replenishment districts. There is a shortage of water in Southern California. Compton has an abundance of it.
“The last reason why whup us is, can’t nobody whup us. I mean, when you come to fight Compton, you better be ready to fight.
“And it would be a joy for them to bend our will and to make us bow down to their money, to their political endorsements, to their political machines, and people that walk from out of town, who never have come to Compton before…
“They don’t care when our sons and daughters, they don’t come.
“They don’t care when a child is on fire, they don’t come.
“They don’t come when we have murder on top of murder, when we have gang on top of gang, when we have the highest unemployment, they don’t come.
“They don’t come because we have the highest incidence of HIV.
“They don’t come when they close our hospitals.
“But when it’s time to get some of our money, they come. When it’s time to get some of our resources, here they come.
“When it’s time for them to try and split our town in half, here they come. Well, guess what?
“We are going to send them backpackin’, just like we always have done with that same old thing coming out of their mouths: Don’t mess with those Negroes from Compton ‘cause we will fight you to the last man, to the last child, to the last woman, to make sure you don’t take anything that belongs to us.”
(To be continued)
