[img]1294|right|Christopher Armenta||no_popup[/img]Shmoozing with City Councilman Jim Clarke is like shaking hands with an octopus.
On the one hand…
On another hand…
On a farther hand…
Still farther away on an as-yet- untouched hand…
Mr. Ubiquitous was flying out to Washington on a business trip last evening.
On the way to the airport, kind of, he stopped by the Christmas Tree lighting in Town Plaza to douse himself with a splash of the wonderful spirit of Christmas and simultaneously to hold forth on favorite topics.
Before detouring to his favorite topic of politics and his role in the recent Christopher Armenta campaign for state Assembly, Mr. Clarke responded to the questions of the hour:
What do you do on Christmas?
What do you look forward to on Christmas?
“Like every kid, opening gifts. You open one on Christmas Eve.
“Usually I go to Midnight Mass. I did that when I was a kid. We’d get home about 2 o’clock, have breakfast, and you could open one more gift. Then you go to bed.
“Now I usually do this with my goddaughter, Nora Gross. When she was little, she would wake us all up, anxious to tear the gifts apart.
“Nora is now 20, and she is at San Diego State in the film program.
“She was 15 months old when she was adopted by her mother from China.”
Any special Christmas food Mr. Clarke anticipates?
“No. But for the last couple years I have had Thanksgiving – I won’t mention who – but it ends up vegetarian chili, no alcohol, no football. No turkey.
“So the day after Thanksgiving, I had to go to Capriotti’s and have one of their turkey sandwiches.”
Mr. Clarke declined to identify his host “for fear of not being invited back again,” he said with a hearty laugh encircled by a giant Christmas wreath.
Politically Speaking
On Election Day afternoon last Tuesday in the state Assembly race won by Sebastian Ridley-Thomas, “I spent four hours walking for Chris Armenta. I was going to homes of people who are frequent voters. I was amazed at the number of people who didn’t realize there was an election.
“The turnout in this election was under 7 percent (6.7). More than half of the votes were by absentee.
“Polling sites were a disaster again by the County. People in Fox Hills had to go to El Marino School in order to vote. At El Marino, there were two rooms, and you had to go into the right room.
“I was walking in the Vets Park area. Those people vote at the Julian Dixon Library even though I could see Vets Auditorium, where the polling place was.
“In the School Board election, we had people living in Culver City having to go vote in Los Angeles for a polling place. Also in that election, we had the Julian Dixon Library, and across the street Rotary Plaza, two polling places across the street from each other. People had to drive four or five miles for a polling place when these two were across from each other.”
Finishing Far Back
Mr. Clarke was “not surprised” by Mr. Armenta’s 60 percent to 36 percent loss or margin to Mr. Ridley-Thomas.
“The idea was to see if Chris could get into a runoff. For that to happen, the third candidate (John Jake) had to draw 15 to 20 percent of the vote. (Mr. Jake finished at 4 percent.)”
Of Mr. Jake, the Councilman said, “He was just interested in getting his name out for his business, and he didn’t do any campaigning. If that’s the case, it was a two-person race.
“I thought it was important to support Chris because not only because…when he stepped down from the Council, that opened an opportunity for me to be able to run.
“Secondarily, because I think it is important Culver City not be forgotten in this whole race. Putting up a formidable candidate and running a campaign, there was a message that you have to pay attention to Culver City, not take it for granted.”
Mail(er) Order?
Mr. Clarke’s opinion of Mr. Armenta’s controversial mailer striking out at Mr. Ridley-Thomas’s County Supervisor father while also naively, embarrassingly, inflating the importance of Chanukah?
“I wasn’t happy with it,” he said.
“There might have been other ways to frame it.
“ I thought a legitimate question would have been, ‘How does someone who is 26 years old raise a half million dollars on a campaign?’
“I have a hard time raising what I need for a City Council election, and it’s like one-twentieth of that amount.”
Would Mr. Clarke advise Mr. Armenta to run again in the June primary when Mr. Ridley-Thomas will be seeking a full two-year term.
“I think it will be an uphill battle for him,” the Councilman said.
